By 

Louis  Albert  Banks,  D.D. 

The  New  Ten  Commandments 

And  Other  Sermons . $1.50 

Strong,  stirring  Gospel  addresses  reflecting  the 
true  evangelical  note.  Dr.  Banks’  latest  volume, 
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presentation. 

Thirty- One  Revival  Sermons 

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u  Dr.  Banks  is  at  his  best  in  these  pages.  That 
these  sermons  abound  in  illustrations  and  that  they 
are  extremely  interesting  goes  without  saying. 
They  furnish  inspiring  devotional  reading  for 
preacher  or  layman.” — United  Presbyterian . 

Illustrative  Prayer-Meetmg  Talks 

Cloth.  International  Leaders'  Library  .  .  .  $1.00 

“  Dr.  Banks  appeals  tenderly  and  forcibly  to 
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Wonderful  Bi 
Conversions 


By 

LOUIS  ALBERT  BANKS 


Author  of  “  The  New  Ten  Commandments etc . 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1923,  by 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh :  75  Princes  Street 


To 

My  Sister 
MARIA  BANKS 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/wonderfulbiblecoOObank 


Introduction 


ISAIAH  prophesied  about  Jesus  that  “His 
name  shall  be  called  Wonderful.”  And  while 
there  are  many  angles  from  which  we  might 
review  the  life  and  personality  of  Jesus  in  which 
He  realizes  and  fulfills  that  prophecy,  the  most 
wonderful  thing  about  Jesus  is  His  power  to  for¬ 
give  sins.  That  is  the  supreme  wonder  about 
Jesus.  The  men  and  women  who  came  in  contact 
with  Him,  and,  meeting  Him,  lost  their  sins  and 
became  free  from  their  gloom  and  burden  and 
power,  shine  like  stars  along  the  trail  which  the 
Master  made  glorious  by  His  divinely  exercised 
power  to  bring  men  from  darkness  to  light  and 
from  the  power  of  Satan  unto  God. 

He  loved  to  feed  men’s  fainting  bodies,  but  He 
loved  most  to  feed  their  souls  with  the  bread  of 
life.  He  was  glad  when  He  could  say  to  a  loath¬ 
some  leper;  “Be  thou  clean!”  but  His  greatest 
exultation  was  when  He  could  cleanse  the  filthy 
soul.  He  lost  no  chance  to  open  a  blind  man’s 
eyes,  but  He  was  happier  when  He  opened  a  dark¬ 
ened  mind  and  filled  a  gloomy  heart  with  the  light 
from  heaven.  He  was  glad  to  give  a  palsied  man 

7 


8 


INTRODUCTION 


power  to  walk  and  carry  his  bed  home  on  his 
shoulder,  but  His  greatest  rejoicing  was  when  He 
could  say  to  him :  “  Thy  sins,  which  are  many,  are 
all  forgiven  thee.” 

That  power  to  break  the  handcuffs  and  shackles 
of  wicked  habit  and  set  free  the  slaves  of  sin  is 
the  supreme  wonder  about  Christ.  And,  thank 
God,  He  is  still  the  same  wonderful  Saviour. 

It  has  been  my  blessed  privilege  to  witness  the 
exercise  of  this  power  of  Christ  to  forgive  sins 
and  to  save  the  sinner  in  many  thousands  of  cases. 

I  well  remember  one  watch-night  service  when 
the  people  gathered  as  early  as  eight  o'clock,  and 
for  four  hours,  with  prayer  and  song  and  grateful 
testimony  to  Christ’s  redeeming  love,  watched  for 
the  coming  in  of  the  New  Year. 

Rather  early  in  the  evening  a  very  large,  middle- 
aged  man,  evidently  intoxicated,  staggered  into  the 
church  and  sat  down  in  the  back  seat  and,  after 
a  while,  fell  asleep.  He  awoke  in  an  hour  or  two, 
slowly  coming  out  from  the  power  of  the  drink. 
When  at  last  I  made  an  earnest  appeal  for  sinners 
to  accept  Christ,  he  seemed  much  affected  and  sat 
sobbing  and  crying  quietly.  As  the  meeting  con¬ 
tinued,  and  earnest  laymen  were  counselling  and 
praying  with  others  at  the  altar,  I  went  back  to 
interview  this  drunkard.  He  was  a  very  repulsive 
spectacle.  He  had  been  down  in  the  mud  and 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


rolled  in  it  until  his  ragged  coat  was  plastered  all 
over  the  back  and  sides;  his  trousers  were  torn 
open  at  both  knees;  his  face  was  swollen,  his  nose 
and  cheeks  had  the  red  lines  of  drunkenness,  and 
his  eyes  were  bloodshot.  I  sat  down  beside  him 
and  pleaded  with  him  to  give  his  heart  to  Christ 
and  start  the  New  Year  with  a  new  heart  and  a 
new  life.  He  was  sick  enough  of  his  sins,  but 
was  hopeless.  The  burden  of  his  cry  was: 
“  What’s  the  use  ?  I  cannot  stop  the  drink.  I  tell 
you,  Dominie,  it’s  got  me !  It’s  got  me !  ” 

I  never  in  my  life  saw  a  more  unlikely  case, 
yet  I  knew  Christ  had  power  to  save  him  if  I  could 
waken  a  desire  in  his  poor,  hopeless,  wicked  heart 
to  accept  and  surrender  to  Jesus.  At  last  he 
seemed  touched  that  I  did  not  seem  afraid  or 
ashamed  of  putting  my  arm  about  his  mud-soaked 
shoulders,  and  said  that  it  was  a  shame  to  come 
into  a  decent  church  in  such  a  condition.  But  I 
urged:  “  Man,  your  coat  is  clean  compared  with 
your  soul !  Your  coat  will  brush  off  when  it  gets 
dry,  but  your  soul  is  full  of  dirt  and  filth  that 
only  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  can  ever  wash  out — 
but  He  can  make  it  white  as  snow.” 

At  last  the  man  roused  enough  to  say,  “  You 
really  talk  like  you  believe  that !  ” 

“  Oh,  brother !  I  do  believe  it,  I  know  it !  Con¬ 
fess  Jesus  here  and  now  and  He  will  confess  you 


10 


INTRODUCTION 


before  God  and  forgive  your  sins  and  cleanse  your 
heart  and  help  you  to  be  a  good,  sober,  clean 
man !  ” 

He  stared  into  my  eyes  a  moment,  and  then 
said:  “What  shall  I  do?  ” 

It  was  the  Philippian  jailer’s  old  question  over 
again.  I  knew  I  had  won. 

“  Do  ?  ”  I  exclaimed.  “  Come  with  me  to  the 
altar  and  give  your  heart  to  God  through  Jesus 
Christ !  ” 

“  What !  Go  up  there  among  those  well-dressed 
ladies  looking  like  a  hog?  ” 

“  Yes,”  I  said.  “  They  will  be  glad  to  have  you 
come.” 

I  broke  in  on  whatever  was  doing  at  the  front 
of  the  church  with  a  shout:  “  Sing  4  Just  as  I 
am !  ’  ”  And  they  began  to  sing  the  grand  old 
redemption  hymn: 

“  Just  as  I  am,  without  one  plea 

But  that  Thy  blood  was  shed  for  me. 

And  that  Thou  bid’st  me  come  to  Thee, 

O  Lamb  of  God,  I  come,  I  come.” 

I  got  the  man  to  his  feet.  He  was  now  sobbing 
like  a  child.  With  one  arm  about  his  muddy  body 
I  led  him  up  to  the  altar,  where  he  flung  himself 
on  the  mercy  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ. 

Christ  met  him  right  there  in  a  wonderful  sal- 


INTRODUCTION 


11 


vation.  With  great  humility  he  begged  for  our 
consideration  and  our  prayers.  The  next  night  he 
was  back;  but  his  face  was  clean  and  his  torn 
clothes  had  been  cleaned  and  patched.  He  got  up 
when  he  had  a  chance  and  said:  “  Jesus  Christ  has 
wonderfully  kept  me  from  drink  and  all  sin  for 
one  whole  day !  ”  The  next  night  his  testimony 
was  for  two  days. 

The  third  day  he  got  work.  He  was  an  iron 
moulder  and  earned  good  wages.  By  the  time  he 
had  twenty  days  to  thank  God  for,  he  had  a  splen¬ 
did  new  suit  of  clothes  and  every  one  remarked, 
“  What  a  handsome  man  he  is!  ”  He  hunted  up 
his  mother,  rented  a  good  home,  placed  her  there 
as  a  queen,  and  no  queen  was  ever  prouder  than 
she  of  her  noble  son  now  redeemed  by  the  won¬ 
derful  love  and  power  of  Christ.  “  His  name 
shall  be  called  Wonderful!  ” 

Christ  has  that  same  wonderful  power  now. 
Some  who  see  these  wTords  need  it  as  much  as  did 
that  drunken  moulder.  Oh,  I  know  you  would 
say  indignantly:  “  I  never  drank  a  drop  of  liquor 
in  my  life;  I  have  always  been  respectable!  ”  No 
doubt.  But  there  are  other  sins  just  as  evil  in  the 
sight  of  God.  What  about  envy?  It  was  envy 
that  drove  Cain  to  murder  his  own  brother.  What 
about  jealousy?  It  was  jealousy  that  crucified 
Jesus — and  Pilate  knew  it!  What  about  greed. 


12 


INTRODUCTION 


the  love  of  money,  the  determination  to  get  rich 
at  any  cost?  That  was  the  sin  that  drove  Judas 
to  betray  his  Lord  with  a  kiss. 

Oh,  man,  woman,  I  do  not  know  what  your  own 
peculiar  sin  is!  but  God  knows  what  it  is.  And 
you  know  what  is  eating  like  a  canker,  like  an  evil 
worm,  at  the  root  of  your  tree  of  happiness.  And 
whatever  it  is,  it  must  be  destroyed.  You  must  be 
saved  from  it  or  be  lost.  You  must  be  forgiven 
and  taken  from  the  power  of  your  sin  and  set  free. 
And,  thank  God,  Jesus  Christ  can  do  that  won¬ 
derful  thing  for  you  here  and  now.  It  is  a  won¬ 
derful  thing  to  do!  But  that  is  His  very  name — 
“  His  name  shall  be  called  Wonderful  !  ” 


L.  A.  B. 


Contents 


I.  Taming  the  Wild  Man  of  Gadara  .  15 

II.  The  Woman  Who  Forgot  Her 

Water-pot . 27 

III.  The  Sinner  Who  Came  to  Jesus 

Through  the  Roof  .  .  .41 

IV.  The  Calling  of  Matthew  Levi  .  53 

V.  The  Night  Jesus  Spent  With  Zac- 

CHiEus  of  Jericho  ....  64 

VI.  The  Prodigal  Son  and  His  Elder 

Brother . 75 

VII.  The  Two  Dinners  in  Simon’s  House  .  93 

VIII.  Three  Interesting  Witnesses  for 

Christ . 106 

IX.  The  Restoration  of  Peter  .  .  117 

X.  The  Open  Secrets  of  Pentecost  .  127 

XI.  Mercy  and  Healing  at  the  Beautiful 

Gate . 139 

XII.  The  Conversion  of  the  Chief  of 

Sinners . 152 

XIII.  The  Conversion  of  a  Roman  Cen¬ 

turion  and  His  Friends  .  .163 

XIV.  The  Story  of  a  Midnight  Conversion  176 


I 


TAMING  THE  WILD  MAN  OF  GADARA 

“And  no  man  had  strength  to  tame  him.” 

— Mark  5  :  4. 

“  Behold  him  that  was  possessed  with  demons  sit¬ 
ting,  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind,  even  him  that  had 
the  legion  — Mark  5  :  15. 

IT  was  the  morning  after  the  storm  on  the  lake 
that  had  so  frightened  the  disciples  when 
Jesus,  aroused  by  them,  had  said  to  the  angry 
waves:  “  Peace,  be  still,”  and  the  heaving  billows 
had  become  calm.  The  disciples  had  been  greatly 
awed  and  amazed  at  this  exhibition  of  Christ’s 
power,  and  it  was  perhaps  partly  to  show  them 
the  far  more  important  work  Christianity  must  do 
that  He  brought  them  the  next  day  to  this  country 
of  the  Gerasenes  and  landed  at  Gadara.  Here  it 

f 

was  that  a  man  whom,  for  convenience’  sake,  we 

will  call  Demos,  met  them. 

Demos  was  known  as  the  Wild  Man  of  Gadara. 

His  mind  and  heart  were  the  abode  of  unclean 

spirits  which  mastered  him  completely,  so  that  he 

lived  a  wretched  life,  a  curse  to  himself  and  a 

danger  and  a  threat  to  others.  With  what  graphic 

force  Mark  describes  his  condition: 

15 


16  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


“  A  man  with  an  unclean  spirit,  who  had  his  dwell¬ 
ing  in  the  tombs :  and  no  man  could  any  more  bind 
him,  no,  not  with  a  chain;  because  that  he  had  been 
often  bound  with  fetters  and  chains,  and  the  chains 
had  been  rent  asunder  by  him,  and  the  fetters  broken 
in  pieces:  and  no  man  had  strength  to  tame  him. 
And  always,  night  and  day,  in  the  tombs  and  in  the 
mountains,  he  was  crying  out,  and  cutting  himself 
with  stones.” 

This  was  the  man  who  came  running  down  to 
the  beach  to  meet  Jesus  when  He  landed  in  com¬ 
pany  with  His  disciples.  He  did  not  come  of  his 
own  accord.  He  was  devil-driven,  and  the  devils 
worshiped  Christ,  and  Jesus  commanded  them  to 
come  out  of  the  man.  And  the  chief  devil,  who 
held  Demos  in  torment,  exclaimed:  “What  have 
I  to  do  with  thee,  Jesus,  thou  Son  of  the  Most 
High  God?  I  adjure  thee  by  God,  torment  me 
not.”  And  when  Christ  asked  his  name,  he  an¬ 
swered:  “  My  name  is  Legion,  for  we  are  many.” 
And  then  he  asked  for  Christ's  permission  to  take 
possession  of  a  herd  of  two  thousand  hogs  near 
by;  and  for  some  reason  which  Christ  deemed 
wise,  He  gave  them  permission,  and  they  entered 
into  the  swine,  and  the  animals  rushed  into  the 
sea  and  were  drowned,  and  their  herders,  alarmed 
and  excited,  ran  away  to  find  the  men  who  owned 
the  hogs. 

Now,  while  all  this  was  going  on,  Demos,  res¬ 
cued  from  the  evil  spirits  and  realizing  his  condi- 


THE  WILD  MAN  OP  GAD ARA 


17 


tion,  had  gone  and  secured  proper  clothes,  and  by; 
the  time  the  hog-raisers  came  to  see  what  had  be¬ 
come  of  their  herds,  they  found  Demos,  the  wild 
man,  wild  no  longer,  but  sitting  with  Jesus  and 
His  disciples,  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind.  But 
all  this  was  of  no  account  to  the  hog-raisers.  They 
were  not  interested  in  men ;  all  their  interests  were 
in  hogs.  So  they  begged  Christ  to  depart  out  of 
their  coasts.  We  may  well  believe  they  were 
pretty  badly  scared  or  they  would  have  come  with 
stones  and  spears. 

It  reminds  one  of  the  old  days  when  we  were 
fighting  the  foul  liquor  saloons  that  filled  so  many 
men — and  women,  too — with  unclean  spirits ;  when 
there  was  nothing  the  saloon  owners  dreaded  so 
much  as  a  Christian  church — and  well  they  feared 
the  Church,  for  it  was  the  team-work  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  churches  that  finally  drove  the  saloons  like 
the  swine  of  Gadara  into  the  sea,  and,  please  God, 
bootleggers’  dens  will  soon  go  the  same  way. 

After  a  little,  when  Jesus  and  His  disciples  were 
preparing  to  depart.  Demos  became  very  anxious 
and  begged  Jesus  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  go 
with  Him.  But  Christ  saw  that  it  was  better  for 
him  to  go  back  to  his  home,  and  said:  “  Go  to  thy 
house  unto  thy  friends,  and  tell  them  how  great 
things  the  Lord  hath  done  for  thee,  and  how  he 
had  mercy  on  thee.” 


18  [WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


No  doubt  Demos  watched  from  the  landing, 
with  eyes  wet  with  tears,  as  long  as  he  could  keep 
them  in  view,  waving  his  hand  ever  and  again  in 
grateful  love  to  the  wonderful  Saviour  who  had 
set  him  free  from  the  wretched  uncleanness  of  soul 
which  had  wrecked  and  despoiled  his  life.  And 
then,  with  a  deep  sigh,  he  turned  his  face  toward 
home. 

Now,  with  our  knowledge  of  life  and  human 
nature,  it  is  not  hard  for  our  imagination  to  repro¬ 
duce  the  story  of  Demos.  It  is  not  at  all  an  un¬ 
common  story  in  its  great  essential  fundamentals. 

Demos  was  a  bright  boy,  born  far  back  in  the 
land  of  the  Gerasenes,  who  had  the  great  mis¬ 
fortune  to  be  born  into  a  family  of  easy-going 
parents  who  allowed  him  to  grow'  up  without 
learning  the  important  lesson  of  obedience.  He 
had  inherited  a  quick  temper  that  was  like  a 
powder  flash ;  and  when  he  was  a  little  boy  it  was 
counted  great  sport  in  the  family  to  stir  up  Demos, 
as  one  would  a  pet  tiger  cub,  and  see  him  spit  out 
his  baby  anger. 

It  was  not  such  good  sport  when  he  got  older; 
but  it  was  easier  then  to  pet  him  and  smooth  his 
fur  the  right  way  than  to  enforce  obedience  on  a 
spoiled  boy.  And  so  he  grew  to  manhood  with 
no  law  but  his  wild,  ungoverned  temper.  There 
were  days  when  he  was  a  delightful  companion. 


THE  WILD  MAN  OF  GADARA 


19 


when  everything  went  to  please  him;  and  others 
when  hell  seemed  to  be  let  loose,  when  he  was 
crossed.  He  is  not  an  uncommon  type. 

Demos  won  the  love  of  a  good  girl  and  started 
his  home ;  and  then  every  little  while  the  fur  began 
to  fly.  There  is  no  place  where  self-control  and 
patience  are  more  in  demand  than  in  marriage.  It 
is  no  place  for  lawlessness,  and  Demos  was  law¬ 
less.  His  wife  loved  him  devotedly  at  first,  and 
bore  much  in  silent  suffering,  and  then  in  self- 
defense  came  back  in  protest.  Demos  chafed 
under  restraint.  As  he  grew  older,  and  as  the 
burdens  of  life  increased,  he  grew  worse  every 
day.  Instead  of  a  flash  of  lightning,  followed  by 
smiles,  the  flash  of  temper  began  to  be  followed  by 
sullenness.  He  became  a  man  with  a  grouch,  and 
after  a  while  the  grouch  came  to  stay. 

He  was  like  Cain:  At  first  he  was  only  envious 
of  Abel  now  and  then,  and  between  times  loved 
him  as  when  they  were  boyish  playfellows.  But 
after  a  while  he  began  to  hate  Abel,  and  then  the 
hate  settled  down  into  sullenness.  Cain’s  counte¬ 
nance  changed.  He  lost  the  way  to  laughter-town. 
God  saw  it  and  knew  his  danger  and  reasoned  with 
him  and  warned  him.  In  substance,  God  said: 
“  Look  out,  Cain,  there  is  danger  in  that  envy  and 
hate ;  it  is  like  a  wild  beast  crouching  at  the  door.” 
But  Cain  went  on  hating,  and  one  day  in  the 


20  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


field,  when  he  met  his  brother,  that  seething  hell  of 
hate  in  his  heart  burst  forth,  and  he  killed  Abel, 
and  became  a  vagabond  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Beware  of  allowing  your  evil  temper  to  have 
sway.  Men  and  women  ought  to  learn  this  lesson 
in  childhood.  Family  government  ought  to  teach 
children  God’s  government.  The  decay  of  family 
government  is,  to  my  mind,  one  of  the  most  seri¬ 
ous  and  dangerous  signs  of  the  times  in  all  the 
world  of  our  day.  If  boys  and  girls  do  not  learn 
to  obey  while  they  are  children,  they  will  certainly 
chafe  under  discipline  and  law  in  later  life.  Chil¬ 
dren  who  grow  up  where  the  Bible,  out  of  which 
lessons  of  love  and  spiritual  illumination  are 
drawn  daily  at  the  family  altar,  lies  side  by  side 
with  the  rod  of  discipline  as  a  symbol  of  govern¬ 
ment  and  obedience,  grow  up  not  only  to  love  and 
reverence  their  parents,  but  to  be  law-abiding 
citizens;  the  soldiers  of  the  common  good,  who 
can  be  relied  upon  to  sustain  the  free  institutions 
of  the  Republic.  If  we  are  to  turn  back  the  deadly 
tide  of  bolshevism  and  anarchy  threatening  the 
world  to-day,  we  must  bring  back  the  family  altar 
with  its  family  worship,  and  the  loving  but  firm 
Christian  government  of  children  that  will  teach 
them  that  obedience  to  law  is  liberty. 

Demos  never  learned  that  lesson  of  self-control, 
and  first  the  hot,  stinging  lash  of  his  tongue,  when 


THE  WILD  MAN  OF  GAD  AKA 


21 


in  temper;  and  later  the  still  more  brutal  and  bitter 
sullenness,  which  is  temper  after  it  is  ripe,  broke 
his  wife’s  heart  and  made  him  a  source  of  dread 
and  fear  to  his  children.  And  so,  step  by  step, 
Demos  took  his  dark  trail  to  the  day  when  the 
grouch  never  left  his  brow,  and  the  devils  were  in 
complete  control. 

You  remember  how  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  in 
“  The  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,” 
tells  a  parallel  story  to  that  of  Demos.  Dr.  Jekyll 
has  discovered  a  drug  which  will  transform  him 
into  Mr.  Hyde.  Dr.  Jekyll,  the  kind-hearted, 
gracious-minded,  genial-souled  physician,  under 
the  influence  of  that  drug  becomes  the  mean,  ugly, 
dwarfed  Mr.  Hyde,  a  creature  controlled  by  mur¬ 
derous  hates  and  vicious  passions. 

The  great  mistake  Dr.  Jekyll  made  was  the  belief 
that  he  could  pass  back  from  Hyde  to  Jekyll  at 
will.  As  he  went  on,  he  lost  that  power,  and 
found  himself  slipping  into  the  devilish  Hyde  un¬ 
awares,  and  then,  after  a  while,  Hyde  comes  to 
stay  and  his  nobler  self  is  lost  entirely. 

So  Demos  came  at  last  to  be  an  outlaw  who 
wandered  far  from  home,  an  outcast  in  the  tombs 
and  in  the  mountains,  a  curse  to  himself  and  to 
every  one  who  knew  him. 

And  then  he  meets  Jesus  on  the  beach  of 

Gadara.  The  devils  are  cast  out.  His  unclean 
* 


22  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


soul  is  set  free.  His  evil  tempers  are  mastered  by 
divine  love.  And  the  master  who  has  redeemed 
him  and  set  him  free  says:  “  Go  to  thy  house  unto 
thy  friends,  and  tell  them  how  great  things  the 
Lord  hath  done  for  thee,  and  how  he  had  mercy 
on  thee.” 

Now  the  wonderful  Saviour  has  gone,  and  the 
test  of  his  salvation  has  come.  He  starts  home. 
He  had  intended  to  go  clear  home  before  he  said 
a  word  to  any  one  about  what  had  happened ;  but 
as  he  goes  he  recalls  what  a  wonderful  change  has 
come  over  his  life,  and  he  gets  so  happy  he  cannot 
keep  still:  “Thank  God!  Dear  Jesus,  how  good 
He  was  to  me !  ”  And  just  then  he  meets  a  man 
and  tells  him  the  whole  story,  and  after  that  he 
goes  on  telling  every  one  he  meets  until  the  story 
runs  everywhere  through  the  whole  countryside. 

Now  you  will  note  that  Christ’s  command  was, 
“  Tell  them  how  great  things  the  Lord  hath  done 
for  thee ;  ”  but  Demos  went  on  his  way  shouting 
how  great  things  Jesus  had  done  for  him.  Jesus 
was  all  the  Lord  Demos  knew ;  and  wiser  than  he 
knew,  he  went  on  giving  glory  to  Christ  for  his 
salvation. 

Good  news,  like  bad  news,  scatters  fast  and 
everywhere  from  town  to  town,  and  from  house 
to  house  went  the  wonderful  story  that  Demos, 
the  wild  man  of  Gadara,  had  met  Jesus  and  had 


THE  WILD  MAN  OF  GADARA 


23 


lost  his  devils,  and  was  wild  no  more,  but  was  full 
of  wonderful  joy  and  happiness,  and  never  lost 
a  chance  to  tell  what  glorious  things  Jesus  had 
done  for  him.  So  it  was  that  the  news  of  his 
salvation  reached  home  ahead  of  him. 

At  first  his  poor  wife,  who  had  suffered  so  much 
at  his  hands,  could  not  believe  it.  “  I  hope  he  does 
not  come  here !  I  used  to  love  him.  My !  how  I 
did  love  him !  God  only  knows  how  I  loved  him ! 
But  he  treated  me  so  badly;  I  have  suffered  so 
much  from  his  vile  temper,  and  he  has  been  so 
mean  and  wicked,  not  only  to  me  but  to  the  chil¬ 
dren,  that  I  never  want  to  see  him  again.” 

But  the  news  kept  coming.  One  after  another 
came  and  said,  “  Mary,  a  wonderful  change  has 
come  over  Demos.  He’s  not  the  same  man.  You 
know  how  sullen  and  bitter  he  was.  Now  his  face 
is  full  of  smiles,  and  when  he  tells  about  meeting 
Jesus  and  losing  all  his  evil  spirits,  he  laughs  aloud 
and  happy  tears  fill  his  eyes  and  wet  his  cheeks.” 

“  What !  Demos  laughs  ?  Why,  he  never 
laughed  once  for  a  year  before  he  left!  That  is 
as  he  used  to  be  before  we  were  married,  and  at 
times  afterward.  Oh,  if  it  could  be !  If  it  could 
be  that  he  has  been  set  free  from  those  wicked 
tempers !  But  it’s  too  good  to  be  true !  ” 

And  then,  at  last,  a  neighbour  boy  comes  run¬ 
ning  and  shouts  to  her:  “Demos  is  in  town; 


24  WONDEBFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


yonder  they  come  down  the  street.  The  people 
are  leaving  their  stores,  and  their  homes,  and  are 
bringing  him  home.  Why,  he’s  the  happiest  man 
you  ever  saw !  ” 

That  was  too  much.  Mary  could  not  resist 
that.  How  often  she  had  tried  to  make  him 
happy,  and  failed.  She  had  cooked  dainties  for 
him,  and  done  everything  in  her  power  to  please 
him  and  make  him  happy,  but  months  had  gone  by 
and  she  would  not  see  him  happy  a  single  time. 
Something  wonderful  had  surely  happened  if 
Demos  was  happy.  She  must  see  him.  She  could 
stand  it  no  longer,  and  with  one  hand  holding  her 
little  girl  and  the  other  clutching  her  boy,  they 
went  out  to  meet  that  strange  procession.  As  she 
reached  the  gate  she  saw  him  coming  with  the  crowd 
of  neighbours.  Just  then  he  saw  her,  and,  some¬ 
how,  the  old  love  came  back  to  him,  that  years  of 
quarreling  and  sinful  tempers  had  dulled  and 
blurred.  She  was  his  precious  Mary  again — the 
girl  who  had  seemed  to  him  the  fairest  and  sweet¬ 
est  of  all  God’s  bright  creation  in  womanhood — 
and  his  heart  broke  at  the  memory  of  how  he  had 
treated  her;  the  way  he  had  broken  her  heart  and 
filled  her  life  with  sorrow.  But,  as  he  was  about 
to  halt  with  shame  and  despair,  he  remembered 
Jesus  and  what  He  had  done  for  him,  and  all  else 
was  forgotten.  He  threw  his  arms  aloft  and 


THE  WILD  MAN  OF  GADARA 


25 


shouted  as  he  ran  toward  her,  “  Mary!  See  what 
Jesus  did  for  me!  I  am  well  again!  The  unclean 
spirits  are  gone!  And,  O  Mary!  I  never  loved 
you  so  much  in  all  my  life  as  I  do  to-day !  And 
with  Jesus’  help  I  am  going  to  be  a  good  husband 
and  a  good  father!  Forgive  me,  Mary!  ” 

By  that  time  he  had  reached  Mary.  They  had 
found  each  other’s  arms,  and  eyes  and  lips  were 
settling  difficulties  and  estrangement  faster  and 
more  completely  than  any  words  could  have  done. 
The  children  followed  her  to  their  father’s  arms. 
The  neighbours,  conscious  that  they  were  looking 
on  holy  things,  silently  dispersed,  and  a  Christian 
family  life  began. 

Thank  God!  Jesus  is  still  performing  miracles 
just  as  wonderful  as  that,  in  all  parts  of  the  world 
wherever  His  Gospel  is  being  proclaimed.  Men 
and  women  gone  wild  with  wicked  tempers  and 
passions  are  being  tamed  as  only  Jesus  has  the 
strength  to  tame  them.  Hearts  and  minds  that 
have  become  filthy  dens  of  unclean  spirits  are  be¬ 
ing  cleansed  at  the  word  of  Christ  to-day  as  in 
the  day  when  He  landed  at  Gadara,  and  families 
torn  asunder  are  being  reconciled  by  His  divine 
love ;  and  Christian  homes  are  being  estab¬ 
lished  through  the  conversion  of  husbands  and 
wives. 

Demos  had  just  one  chance.  He  had  only  one 


26  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


glimpse  of  Jesus,  but  that  was  enough  to  win  sal¬ 
vation. 

Christ  has  landed  on  your  coast.  His  heart  is 
full  of  love.  His  hands  are  full  of  blessings.  Will 
you  take  them  ?  No  matter  what  your  sin  may  be, 
no  matter  what  particular  phase  of  uncleanness 
has  soiled  your  soul,  Jesus  has  power  to  cleanse 
and  redeem  you,  and  He  can  do  it  now.  What¬ 
ever  unhappiness  or  gloom  or  defeat  sin  has 
brought  to  your  life,  Christ  has  power  to  dispel  it. 
Christ  can  bring  joy  and  laughter  and  content¬ 
ment,  and  fill  the  future  with  abiding  hope. 


II 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  FORGOT  HER 
WATER-POT 

“  Po  the  woman  left  her  water-pot ,  and  went  away 
into  the  city,  and  saith  to  the  people,  Come,  see  a 
man,  who  told  me  all  things  that  ever  I  did:  can 
this  he  the  Christ t  ” — John  4 :  28-29. 

IT  was  at  the  close  of  a  hard  day  when  Jesus 
and  His  disciples  came  to  the  well  of  Sychar. 
The  Master  was  weary  and  remarked  to  His 
friends  that  if  they  only  had  food  it  would  be  a 
pleasant  place  to  camp.  And  they,  sensitive  to 
every  desire  of  their  wonderful  Leader,  begged 
Him  to  remain  while  they  went  into  the  town  to 
buy  food.  And  so  Jesus  sat  down  by  the  well  to 
rest  while  He  waited  for  their  return. 

This  was  a  famous  well,  which  had  been  dug 
by  Jacob  and  his  sons  long  ago,  and  in  that  primi¬ 
tive  day  long  before  the  wonderful  inventions  and 
cooperation  of  our  modern  communities,  where 
water  is  brought  to  the  humblest  tenement  in  the 
town  or  city.  It  was  carried,  usually  on  the  shoul¬ 
der  or  on  the  heads  of  women,  to  the  hilltop, 
where  towns  were  built,  because  they  could  be 
more  easily  defended. 


27 


28  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


What  wonders  Jesus  has  wrought  for  woman¬ 
hood!  You  can  trace  back  to  Jesus  Christ  and 
His  life  and  teaching  the  comradeship  and  re¬ 
spect,  an  even-handed  chance  for  education,  and  a 
fair  share  in  the  blessings  of  life  granted  to  women 
in  most  civilized  lands  to-day* 

Sychar  was  built  on  a  hill,  and  the  women  car¬ 
ried  the  water  for  home  and  household  needs  as 
their  mothers  and  grandmothers  had  done  before 
them.  It  did  not  occur  to  the  men  that  the 
stronger  shoulder  should  carry  the  heavier  burden. 
That  thought  had  to  come  through  Christ’s  Gospel 
that  the  strong  should  bear  the  burdens  of  the 
weak.  Every  woman  should  love  and  honour 
Jesus  Christ.  I  marvel  when  I  see  an  intelligent 
woman  who  does  not  revere  Jesus. 

While  Jesus  sat  resting  by  the  well  of  Jacob,  a 
woman  came  down  from  the  top  of  the  hill  with 
her  great  rawhide  water-pot  for  water  for  her 
house.  She  was  not  a  woman  of  high  standing 
in  Sychar.  That  she  was  an  attractive  woman  we 
are  sure,  since  five  different  men  had  taken  her  to 
wife.  But  life  had  not  gone  well  with  her,  and 
she  had  lost  rather  than  gained  in  womanly  dig¬ 
nity,  until  at  last  she  had  weakly  given  herself  to 
an  unblessed  fellowship  with  a  man,  which  is  looked 
at  askance  in  every  land,  and  which  marked  her  as 
a  woman  off-colour  in  the  community.  As  she  drew 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  FORGOT 


29 


near  the  old  well  she  looked  with  interest  at  the 
tired  man,  and  responded  with  sympathy  when  He 
asked  her  for  a  drink  of  water  from  her  water- 
pot.  She  gave  it  to  Him  willingly,  but  expressed 
her  astonishment  that  He,  being  a  Jew,  should 
humble  Himself  to  ask  a  favour  of  her,  seeing 
that  she  was  a  Samaritan  woman;  for  it  was  at 
a  time  when  the  Jews  and  Samaritans  were  not 
friendly  and  were  not  accustomed  to  deal  in  a 
neighbourly  manner  with  each  other. 

To  this  Jesus  answered:  “If  thou  knewest  the 
gift  of  God,  and  who  it  is  that  saith  unto  thee, 
Give  me  to  drink ;  thou  wouldst  have  asked  of  him, 
and  he  would  have  given  thee  living  water.” 

The  woman  is  full  of  interest  now,  and  says: 
“  Sir,  thou  hast  nothing  to  draw  with,  and  the 
well  is  deep:  whence  then  hast  thou  that  living 
water?  Art  thou  greater  than  our  father  Jacob, 
who  gave  us  the  well,  and  drank  thereof  himself, 
and  his  sons,  and  his  cattle?”  Jesus  replied: 
“  Every  one  that  drinketh  of  this  water  shall  thirst 
again:  but  whosoever  drinketh  of  the  water  that  I 
give  him  shall  never  thirst;  but  the  water  that  I 
shall  give  him  shall  become  in  him  a  well  of  water 
springing  up  unto  eternal  life.”  The  woman  evi¬ 
dently  grasped  something  of  the  wonderful  claim 
made  by  Christ,  and  she  responded  very  simply 
and  directly:  “Sir,  give  me  this  water,  that 


30  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


I  thirst  not,  neither  come  all  the  way  hither  to 
draw.” 

Then  it  was  that  the  real  conversational 
wrestling  match  between  Jesus  and  the  woman  of 
Sychar  began,  the  prize  being  the  woman's  soul. 
Suddenly  changing  the  subject  entirely  to  outward 
seeming,  yet  really  continuing  it  straight  as  a  die, 
Jesus  said:  “Go,  call  thy  husband,  and  come 
hither.”  In  substance  Jesus  was  saying:  “If  I 
am  to  give  you  the  water  of  eternal  life,  we  must 
first  straighten  out  your  social  life;  the  people  you 
live  with  will  have  something  to  do  about  that. 
The  spiritual  water  that  will  slake  the  thirst  of 
your  soul  and  become  a  fountain  of  contentment 
and  joy  within  you  can  come  to  you  only  when 
your  life  is  clean  and  pure,  and  your  relations  are 
true  and  right  in  the  sight  of  God.”  So  when 
Jesus  said:  “Go,  call  thy  husband,”  it  was  like  a 
surgeon's  knife  thrust  into  the  heart  of  a  car¬ 
buncle.  The  woman  started  in  amazement:  “I 
have  no  husband.” 

Then  Jesus  looked  her  calmly  in  the  face  and 
said,  not  accusingly,  but  facing  the  ugly  facts  of 
her  life:  “Thou  saidst  well,  I  have  no  husband: 
for  thou  hast  had  five  husbands,  and  he  whom 
thou  now  hast  is  not  thy  husband:  this  hast  thou 
said  truly.” 

The  woman  answered :  “  Sir,  I  perceive  that 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  FORGOT 


31 


thou  art  a  prophet.  Our  fathers  worshipped  in 
this  mountain;  and  ye  say,  that  in  Jerusalem  is  the 
place  where  men  ought  to  worship.”  But  Jesus 
is  determined  to  bring  her  face  to  face  with  the 
chance  of  immediate  salvation,  and  so  He  an¬ 
swered:  “  Woman,  believe  me,  .  .  .  the  hour 

cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the  true  worshippers 
shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  truth:  for 
such  doth  the  Father  seek  to  be  his  worshippers. 
God  is  a  Spirit:  and  they  that  worship  him  must 
worship  in  spirit  and  truth.” 

The  woman  responds  to  this  with  true  solemnity 
and,  showing  that  she  had  had  careful  religious 
training  in  her  youth,  says,  “  I  know  that  Messiah 
cometh  (he  that  is  called  Christ) :  when  he  is 
come,  he  will  declare  unto  us  all  things.” 

At  last  the  moment  of  revelation  has  come: 
Jesus  frankly  says  to  her,  “  I  that  speak  unto  thee 
am  he.” 

Just  then,  at  that  critical  moment,  came  the 
disciples,  and  as  Jesus  turned  to  greet  them  the 
woman,  in  her  excitement  at  His  wonderful  decla¬ 
ration  of  Himself  and  His  mission  forgetting  all 

i 

about  her  water-pot  and  the  water  she  had  come 
for,  hurried  away  into  the  city,  feeling  that  she 
must  share  with  some  one  else  the  great  news  that 
like  a  glorious  sunrise  of  hope  was  illuminating 
her  own  soul. 


32  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 

The  disciples  were,  no  doubt,  full  of  wonder  at 
finding  their  Master  in  such  intimate  conversation 
with  the  woman;  but  they  spread  the  evening 
meal  and  urged  Jesus  to  draw  near  and  eat  with 
them.  To  their  astonishment,  Jesus  was  not 
hungry.  They  had  left  Him  not  only  tired,  but 
hungry ;  but  now  His  hunger  was  gone.  “  Who 
has  given  him  food  ?  ”  they  say  one  to  another, 
and  Jesus,  perceiving  their  wonder,  roused  Him¬ 
self  from  His  reverie  and  said:  “I  have  meat  to 
eat  that  ye  know  not.  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will 
of  him  that  sent  me,  and  to  accomplish  his  work.” 
And,  looking  away  across  the  fields  where  the 
rapidly  sinking  sun  shone  brightly  on  their  white 
clothing,  Jesus  called  the  attention  of  His  disciples 
to  a  large  group  of  people  coming  toward  them, 
and  said:  “  Say  not  ye,  There  are  yet  four  months, 
and  then  cometh  the  harvest?  behold,  I  say  unto 
you,  Lift  up  your  eyes,  and  look  on  the  fields,  that 
they  are  white  already  unto  harvest.  He  that 
reapeth  receiveth  wages,  and  gathereth  fruit  unto 
life  eternal;  that  he  that  soweth  and  he  that  reap¬ 
eth  may  rejoice  together.  For  herein  is  the  say¬ 
ing  true.  One  soweth  and  another  reapeth.  I  sent 
you  to  reap  that  whereon  ye  have  not  laboured: 
others  have  laboured,  and  ye  are  entered  into  their 
labour.” 

Now  this  is  what  had  happened:  The  excited 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  FORGOT 


33 


and  aroused  woman  who  had  come  to  believe  Jesus 
was  the  Messiah,  the  Christ,  as  a  result  of  her  con¬ 
versation  with  Him,  had  left  her  water-pot  at  the 
well  and  had  run  into  the  city  and  had  cried  right 
and  left  to  every  acquaintance  she  met:  “A 
wonderful  man  has  come  to  Sychar!  I  left  him 
at  the  well  of  Jacob  but  just  now!  Come  and 
see  him,  he  is  wonderful,  he  reads  one’s  very  soul, 
he  told  me  all  the  secrets  of  my  life,  he  uncov¬ 
ered  my  secret  soul  to  me.  Come!  This  must 
be  the  Christ.  Come  with  me  and  see  him !  ”  And 
a  great  group  soon  gathered  and,  fearing  the 
wonderful  visitor  may  leave  and  pass  on  to  some 
other  town,  they  follow  the  woman  rapidly  as 
she  leads  them  down  the  slope  of  the  hill  toward 
the  well  where  Jesus  still  lingers  with  His  dis¬ 
ciples. 

There  are  some  very  interesting  things  in  this 
story — interesting  especially  to  every  one  who 
would  learn  the  glorious  art  of  winning  souls  to 
Christ.  The  first  of  these  in  importance  is  that 
this  is  the  great,  supreme  soul  food  to  the  Chris¬ 
tian.  Jesus  declared  to  His  disciples  that  His 
supreme  food  was  to  do  the  will  of  God  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  men  and  women.  He  had  been  very  tired 
and  very  hungry  until  the  woman  came  down  from 
Sychar  to  the  well  and  He  had  the  opportunity 


34  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


to  be  a  help  and  a  blessing  to  her;  and  in  that 
service  weariness  and  hunger  dropped  away  from 
Him ;  He  was  fed  and  rested  by  that  divine  service. 

It  is  a  great  test  for  ourselves  as  Christians. 
To  be  a  Christian  is  to  be  like  Jesus.  If  we  are 
to  be  strong  to  do  Christlike  deeds,  we  must  eat 
of  the  food  that  made  Him  strong.  The  table 
of  human  needs,  of  human  sorrow  and  sin,  is 
spread  all  about  us ;  if  we  are  quick  to  respond  to 
our  opportunities,  as  was  Jesus,  we  may  feed  and 
strengthen  on  the  spiritual  food  which  satisfied  His 
soul.  We  can  only  be  spiritually  strong  and  glad 
by  the  service  of  our  fellow  men  in  the  love  and 
self-forgetfulness  which  rested  and  refreshed  our 
Lord. 

The  forgetfulness  of  this  new  convert  to  Christ, 
that  sent  her  running  up  the  hill  into  the  town, 
leaving  her  water-pot  at  the  well,  is  suggestive  of 
a  great  truth :  that  spiritual  matters  are  of  supreme 
importance  and  that  one’s  power  to  convince  and 
bless  others  concerning  any  spiritual  revelation  or 
blessing  he  has  received,  depends  on  his  being  so 
absorbed  with  it  that  all  the  ordinary  affairs  of 
life  become  secondary  and  incidental  to  the  great 
thing,  the  fact  of  the  divine  Christ,  His  power 
and  willingness  to  forgive  sins  and  save  our  souls 
alive.  When  this  woman  came  back  from  her 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  FORGOT 


35 


conversation  with  Jesus,  if  she  had  brought  her 
water-pot  as  full  as  usual,  and  had  spoken  in 
measured  accents,  she  would  have  attracted  little 
or  no  attention.  The  very  fact  that  she  was  so 
excited  that  she  had  forgotten  the  water  she  went 
for,  and  came  running  and  hailed  every  one  she 
met  with  her  excited  story,  made  every  listener 
feel  that  something  very  unusual  and  important 
had  happened  to  her,  and  that  it  was  worth  in¬ 
vestigating.  Her  very  earnestness  aroused  them 
out  of  their  indifference  to  spiritual  things  and 
broke  through  the  hard  shell  of  their  absorption 
in  worldly  affairs.  My  friends,  if  we  are  to  cap¬ 
ture  a  busy,  absorbed  world  for  our  Christ,  we, 
too,  must  account  Jesus  to  be  the  most  interesting 
and  important  personality  we  know  about,  and 
deem  the  news  that  Christ  is  in  our  town  with 
power  to  forgive  men  and  women  their  sins  and 
feed  their  souls  with  food  from  heaven  and  slake 
their  thirst  with  the  water  of  eternal  life  to  be  of 
first  importance.  If  we  really  feel  the  vast  and 
immediate  importance  of  this  news,  we,  too,  will 
forget  the  ordinary  affairs  of  the  day  in  view  of 
the  nearness  of  Christ,  who  is  able  to  save  unto 
the  uttermost  every  one  who  will  come  unto  God 
by  Him. 


We  have  also  suggested  on  the  highest  authority 


36  „  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


known  to  man  that  the  richest  harvest  field  of  hu¬ 
man  endeavour  is  to  win  men  and  women  to  know 
and  love  and  trust  Christ  as  their  Saviour.  It  is 
a  great  thing  to  heal  and  comfort  the  body,  but 
infinitely  greater  to  heal  or  bless  the  soul.  The 
body  will  live  for  a  few  years,  but  the  soul  will 
live  forever. 

The  soul  is  the  source  of  courage,  hope,  con¬ 
tentment,  peace,  and  no  one  can  so  bless  the  soul 
and  make  it  the  fountain  of  all  these  precious 
things  as  Jesus  Christ.  When  you  bring  and  in¬ 
troduce  a  man  or  a  woman  or  a  boy  or  a  girl  to 
Jesus,  and  insure  a  friendship  with  Him,  you  have 
started  a  train  of  pure  and  joyous  life,  the  wide¬ 
spread  blessing  of  which  only  God  can  tell.  St 
James  says,  speaking  of  one  who  causes  a  con¬ 
version:  “  Let  him  know,  that  he  who  converteth 
a  sinner  from  the  error  of  his  way  shall  save  a 

soul  from  death,  and  shall  cover  a  multitude  of 

•  ** 
sms. 

But  he  who  wins  a  soul  away  from  sin  to  Christ 
not  only  does  all  that — not  only  prevents  sin,  and 
saves  from  sorrow  and  death — but  he  starts  a 
career  of  hope  and  courage  and  love  and  purity 
that  shall  go  on  filling  the  world  with  light  and 
joy  through  countless  ages.  Andrew  brought 
Simon  Peter  to  Jesus;  and  all  the  marvelous  glory 
of  Pentecost  with  thousands  of  joyous  conversions 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  FORGOT 


37 


was  In  that  deed.  A  humble  believer  brought  John 
B.  Gough  to  Jesus;  and  not  only  stopped  one 
drunkard  from  the  downward  path,  but  started  a 
current  of  sobriety  and  revolt  against  the  saloon 
that  is  yet  being  felt  for  righteousness  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth.  The  preacher  who  won  Dwight  L. 
Moody,  the  shoe  clerk,  to  Jesus  little  dreamed  of 
the  stream  of  divine  blessing  he  had  started  on  its 
way  that  day.  The  humble  missionary  who  won 
a  wicked  baseball  player  to  his  Lord  had  no  vision 
of  the  host  that  Billy  Sunday  would  turn  to  right¬ 
eousness.  My  friends,  there  is  no  gold  mine  with 
such  infinite  possibilities  of  unsearchable  wealth  as 
this!  South  Africa  has  no  diamond  field  that 
promises  such  a  chance  for  lasting  riches  as  is 
within  our  reach  in  our  opportunity  to  win  jewels 
for  Christ's  crown. 

It  is  clearly  revealed  here  that  it  is  personal 
effort  which  wins  in  saving  souls.  This  woman's 
cry  was,  “  Come,  see  a  man  who  told  me”  “  Come, 
see  a  man  who  told  me  my  sins.  Come,  see  a  man 
who  told  me  all  the  evil  things  1  did.”  There  was 
nothing  vague  about  that  cry.  It  was  personal 
and  definite.  She  was  not  arguing  about  some¬ 
thing  that  was  merely  speculation ;  she  was  telling 
about  things  she  knew.  You  may  not  be  able  to 
argue  about  Christ  and  His  atonement  in  a  way 


38  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


to  convince  others;  but  if  you  have  yourself  met 
Jesus  face  to  face,  and  talked  with  Him,  and  He 
has  uncovered  your  sins  to  you,  and  shown  you 
the  way  of  escape  from  them,  you  have  some  news 
to  tell  that  men  will  be  attracted  to  hear.  It  is  the 
personal  note,  the  personal  touch,  that  tells.  How 
well  Paul  knew  that!  Wherever  he  was  he  felt 
that  his  own  personal  experience  with  Christ  was 
his  most  powerful  message.  Paul  was  a  well- 
trained  lawyer  and  knew  how  to  argue  with  the 
best  disputants  of  his  day;  but  when  he  was 
brought  before  kings  and  was  called  on  for  the 
best  that  was  in  him,  he  always  told  his  own  per¬ 
sonal  experience — how  he  met  Jesus  in  the  way 
and  lost  his  sins  at  His  feet. 

Do  not  hide  your  own  personal  light,  which 
God  has  given  to  you,  under  a  bushel.  Neither 
your  talents,  nor  your  scholarship,  nor  your 
wealth,  nor  anything  else  can  take  the  place  of  the 
simple  story  of  your  personal  experience  with 
Jesus  in  winning  others  away  from  their  sins  to 
Christ.  Don’t  be  too  proud  or  too  conservative 
or  too  bashful  to  tell  that  story.  Your  silence  may 
do  infinite  harm.  Gratitude  to  God  and  to  your 
Saviour  should  cause  you  gladly  to  tell  the  story 
of  Christ’s  forgiveness  of  your  sins  and  the  bless¬ 
ings  that  have  come  to  you.  The  desire  to  bless 
your  fellow  men  should  make  you  doubly  wrilling 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  FORGOT 


39 


to  bear  glad  testimony  to  your  own  conversion.  A 
sense  of  honour  and  fidelity  to  your  own  soul 
should  make  you  faithful  to  bear  witness  to  the 
truth  of  your  personal  experience  with  Christ. 
More  people  are  won  to  Christ  and  become  Chris¬ 
tians  through  the  testimony  of  some  other  saved 
man  or  woman  than  in  any  other  way.  John,  in 
recording  this  story  of  the  great  revival  that  came 
to  Sychar,  says:  “And  from  that  city  many  of 
the  Samaritans  believed  on  him  because  of  the 
word  of  the  woman,  who  testified,  He  told  me  all 
things  that  ever  I  did.  So  when  the  Samaritans 
came  unto  him,  they  besought  him  to  abide  with 
them:  and  he  abode  there  two  days.  And  many 
more  believed  because  of  his  word ;  and  they  said 
to  the  woman,  Now  we  believe,  not  because  of  thy 
speaking:  for  we  have  heard  for  ourselves, 
and  know  that  this  is  indeed  the  Saviour  of  the 
world.’’ 

At  first  glance  this  sounds  as  though  they  were 
speaking  rudely  or  slightingly  to  the  woman.  But 
nothing  of  that  kind  is  to  be  inferred.  They  are 
only  saying:  “  At  first  we  came  to  Christ  because 
of  what  you  said,  of  your  experience  with  Christ; 
but  we  no  longer  have  to  rely  on  that,  for  we  have 
given  our  own  hearts  to  Him,  and  He  has  given 
us  an  experience  in  our  own  souls  which  makes  us 
known  from  the  witness  in  our  own  consciences 


40  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


that  He  is  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  because  He 
has  become  our  Saviour.” 

Thank  God,  every  one  we  bring  to  Jesus  can 
have  that  personal  experience.  The  acid  test  of 
Christianity  for  every  one  of  us  must  be  what  it  can 
do  and  what  it  has  done  and  does  do  for  us  in  our 
own  lives.  This  woman  was  off-colour  socially  and 
morally  in  Sychar,  but  Jesus  brought  back  the  glow 
of  goodness  and  moral  health  to  her  life.  Every¬ 
where  where  the  name  of  Jesus  is  preached  to¬ 
day,  He  is  doing  that  same  glorious  work.  Men 
as  wild  as  the  man  of  Gadara  become  sweet-tem¬ 
pered  and  full  of  reason  and  peace.  Women  as 
notorious  in  sin  as  the  woman  of  Sychar  become 
examples  of  purity  and  noble  womanhood  in  as¬ 
sociation  with  Jesus.  In  His  name  every  sin  may 
be  overthrown  and  every  sinner  converted  and 
saved.  None  need  hold  back  for  fear  his  sin  is 
too  great;  He  is  able  to  save  unto  the  uttermost 
limit  every  one  that  will  come  unto  God  in  His 
blessed  name ! 


Ill 


THE  SINNER  WHO  CAME  TO  JESUS 
THROUGH  THE  ROOF 

“  But  that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  man  hath 
authority  on  earth  to  forgive  sins  ( he  saith  to  the 
sick  of  the  palsy),  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise,  and  take 
up  thy  hed,  and  go  unto  thy  house .  And  he  arose, 
and  straightway  took  up  the  hed,  and  went  forth  be¬ 
fore  them  all ;  in  so  much  that  they  were  all  amazed, 
and  glorified  God  ” — Mark  2: 10-12. 

JOHN  HOPELESS  had  been  sick  with  the 
palsy  a  long  time.  He  lived  in  Palestine — 
a  land  we  have  learned  to  call  the  Holy  Land 
because  Jesus  lived  there;  gave  Himself  for  the 
sins  of  the  world  there,  and  arose  from  the  dead 
and  ascended  into  heaven  from  that  land.  It  was 
Jesus  who  made  it  the  Holy  Land.  But  John 
Hopeless  had  never  heard  of  Jesus  and  had  given 
up  hope  of  ever  being  cured  of  the  dreadful  palsy 
that  bound  him  to  his  bed  by  its  cruel  chains.  And 
then  a  wonderful  thing  happened.  His  next 
neighbour  down  the  road  was  nearly  as  bad  off  as 
John  was.  He  had  been  a  cripple  for  more  years 
than  John  had  suffered  with  the  palsy;  yes,  James 
Cheero  had  been  crippled  so  that  he  could  not  walk 

41 


42  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


at  all  save  by  the  aid  of  a  pair  of  clumsy  crutches. 
But  he  had  always  been  cheerful  and  had  never 
given  up  hope  of  getting  the  use  of  his  legs  again, 
though  no  one  else  saw  any  reason  for  his  hope. 

And  one  day  Cheero  came  dashing  into  the 
house  of  his  neighbour  Hopeless  and  shouted,  al¬ 
most  out  of  breath:  “  Cheer  up,  John,  you  are 
going  to  be  well  yet !  ” 

And  when  he  paused  to  catch  his  breath,  Hope¬ 
less,  in  astonishment,  cried:  “Why,  James,  where 
are  your  crutches?  ” 

“  Why,  I  don’t  need  them  any  more !  I  met  the 
most  wonderful  Man  in  the  world  an  hour  ago, 
and  He  put  His  hands  on  my  legs  and  said,  ‘  Be 
thou  whole,’  and  I  felt  a  strange  thrill  run  through 
my  legs,  and  I  dropped  my  crutches  and  walked; 
and  then  I  was  so  happy  that  I  leaped,  and  ran, 
and  shouted  for  joy!  ” 

By  this  time  John  Hopeless’  eyes  were  standing 
out  in  amazement,  and  for  a  moment  a  look  of 
hope  sprang  up  in  them ;  but  merely  for  a  moment, 
then  he  lay  back  with  a  weary  sigh:  “  That  shows 
how  much  worse  off  I  am  than  you  were.  You 
could  get  around  on  crutches,  but  I  have  not  been 
away  from  this  place  for  years,  and  never  will  go 
until  they  bury  me.” 

“  Oh,  don’t  say  that,  John,  for  this  wonderful 
rabbi,  Jesus,  has  stopped  just  up  the  road  where 


TO  JESUS  THROUGH  THE  ROOF  43 


an  old  woman  was  very  bad  with  a  fever,  and  He 
went  in  to  heal  her,  and  they  are  bringing  people 
with  all  kinds  of  sickness  so  fast  that  He  is  still 
in  the  house,  and  He  heals  every  one  that  comes.” 

“  But,  James,  you  did  not  see  Him  heal  any  one 
who  was  sick  with  palsy,  did  you  ?  ” 

“  No,  John;  but  I  saw  Him  make  a  leper  look  as 
fresh  and  clean  as  a  boy  by  a  word  and  a  touch 
of  His  hand,  and  the  old  blind  beggar  that  used 
to  sit  by  the  roadside  can  see  now  as  well  as  you 
can;  and  if  He  can  make  a  blind  man  see,  and  a 
leper  clean,  He  surely  can  cure  a  man  of  palsy.” 

“  But,  James,  see;  it’s  just  my  luck:  these  peo¬ 
ple  met  Him  face  to  face  or  they  never  would  have 
been  healed;  but  I  cannot  get  to  Him.  I  am 
chained  here  to  this  bed.” 

“  Well,  don’t  fret  about  that,”  said  Cheero. 
“  We  are  going  to  take  you,  bed  and  all.” 

“  But,  James,  I  am  too  heavy;  you  know  I  can¬ 
not  help  myself  the  least  bit.” 

“  All  we  ask  you  to  do  is  to  cheer  up.”  And 
Cheero  went  to  the  door  and  cried:  ‘‘Come  on, 
boys,”  and  in  a  moment  in  burst  the  man  who  for 
years  had  sat  beside  the  road,  blind  and  begging, 
his  eyes  flashing  with  interest  and  his  face  flushed 
with  joy,  crying,  “Cheer  up,  Hopeless;  see  what 
Jesus  has  done  for  me:  two  hours  ago  I  was  blind 
as  a  bat,  and  now  I  can  see  as  well  as  any  one. 


44  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Jesus  did  it,  and  He  will  cure  you,  too.”  Then 
another  man  stepped  alongside :  “  And  I  was  a 
poor  homeless  leper.  My  soul!  what  an  awful  life 
I  have  led,  but  I  met  Jesus  and  He  made  me  clean. 
See!  my  flesh  is  as  soft  and  fresh  as  any  man’s; 
He  will  heal  you,  too.” 

“  But  it  will  take  four  to  carry  this  bed,  and 
you  are  only  three.” 

But  Cheero  said,  “  I  stopped  at  your  brother’s 
and  asked  him  to  help,  and  he  said  he  would  fol¬ 
low  us,  and  here  he  is.  Now,  boys,”  said  Cheero, 
“  each  man  take  a  corner  and  we  will  soon  have 
him  at  the  feet  of  Jesus.” 

He  was  a  large  man  and  not  easy  to  carry,  but 
the  four  men,  one  at  each  corner  of  the  bed,  lifted 
him  from  the  floor  and  soon  had  him  on  his  way. 
But  when  they  came  in  sight  of  the  house,  they 
saw  a  great  crowd  gathered  about  the  door  and 
a  great  many  other  poor  sick  people  lying  on  the 
ground  outside,  waiting,  with  their  friends,  greatly 
excited  because  every  few  minutes  some  one 
slipped  out  through  the  crowd  whom  Jesus  had 
but  just  now  healed.  This  was  so  exciting  to 
those  outside,  waiting,  that  they  crowded  as  close 
as  possible  to  the  door,  and  it  was  soon  evident 
that  the  house  was  full  inside,  and  only  as  the 
healed  people  came  out  was  there  any  chance  for 
another  inside. 


TO  JESUS  THROUGH  THE  ROOF  45 


Poor  John  Hopeless!  His  courage,  which  had 
begun  to  grow,  failed  him  again.  “  That’s  just 
my  luck;  we  can  never  get  in  to  Jesus  through 
that  crowd,  and  He  will  get  weary  of  healing  and 
go  away  before  my  turn  comes.” 

Just  then  James  Cheero  had  a  new  idea.  “  Say, 
boys,  I’ll  tell  you  what  we  can  do:  that  flat  roof 
is  in  sections.  We  will  manage  some  way  to  get 
Hopeless  up  on  that  roof  and  open  it  up,  and  let 
him  right  down  before  Jesus.” 

Then  spoke  up  the  brother  of  Hopeless:  “  I 
know  where  there  is  a  ladder.  I’ll  get  it.”  And 
away  he  ran. 

“  And  I  know  where  there  is  an  old  tent  that  is 
big  enough  to  slip  right  under  this  bed,  and  we  can, 
by  holding  on  to  the  four  corners,  which  will  serve 
instead  of  ropes,  let  the  bed  down  to  the  floor,” 
said  Cheero,  and  away  he  ran  as  if  he  had  been  a 
contestant  in  a  foot  race. 

“  My,  when  I  remember  how  James  Cheero  used 
to  hobble  around  on  crutches  and  now  see  him  run 
like  that,  it  almost  makes  me  hope  I  shall  be  able 
to  walk  again,  myself,”  said  Plopeless. 

“  Of  course  you  will,”  said  the  man  whose  sight 
had  been  restored.  “  Why,  John,  it  would  be  no 
more  wonderful  for  you  to  carry  this  bed  home 
on  your  own  back  than  for  me  to  be  standing 
here,  seeing.” 


46  WONDERFUL"  BIBLE 'CONVERSIONS. 


“  Or  me  to  be  standing  here,  a  clean,  well  man,” 
exclaimed  the  former  leper. 

But  now  the  brother  came  with  the  ladder,  and 
Cheero  came  with  the  tent,  and  they  carried  the 
bed  near  the  wall  of  the  house;  two  of  them 
climbed  to  the  roof  and  took  hold  of  the  corners 
on  one  side,  and  in  one  way  and  another  they 
finally  managed  to  lift  their  cumbersome  human 
burden  to  the  roof.  It  was  a  simple  matter,  then, 
to  take  out  a  section. 

I  imagine  there  was  a  good  deal  of  excitement 
underneath  when  the  roof  opened  over  their  heads, 
and  they  saw  the  men  peering  down  to  make  sure 
just  where  Jesus  was.  But  they  were  still  more 
excited  when  the  bed  started  down  and  seemed  to 
be  coming  on  to  their  heads,  and,  in  self-defense, 
they  crowded  back  against  each  other.  Holding 
the  four  corners  of  the  tent,  the  four  determined 
men  let  Hopeless  down  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  in  the 
opening  the  fearful  people  in  front  of  the  Master 
had  cleared. 

Bring  the  picture  before  your  imagination.  The 
central  figure  is  Jesus.  There  He  stands,  His  face 
full  of  power  and  compassion.  His  eyes  are  full 
of  tenderness  and  sympathy.  At  His  feet,  lying 
on  his  bed,  is  poor  John  Hopeless,  still  trembling 
with  his  old  enemy,  the  palsy.  He  is  looking  at 
Jesus.  He  had  never  seen  a  rabbi  like  this.  There 


TO  JESUS  THROUGH  THE  ROOF  47 


was  a  nobility  about  the  face  of  Jesus  and  a  look 
in  His  eyes  that  thrilled  him  through  with  hope. 
It  did  more  than  make  him  hope  for  healing.  It 
made  him  feel  what  a  poor,  miserable  sinner  he 
had  been,  and  was.  Down  in  his  heart  he  felt  the 
divine  goodness  in  the  soul  of  Jesus,  and  he  said 
to  himself:  “If  I  could  only  be  free  from  my 
sins  against  God  and  be  as  good  as  He  is,  it  would 
be  a  greater  blessing  than  even  to  be  well  again.” 
About  these  central  figures  stood  the  crowd.  Some 
were  cold,  sneering  Pharisees  watching  to  catch 
Jesus  in  a  trap,  to  find  some  slip  in  His  words 
whereby  they  could  get  Him  into  trouble;  others 
happily  healed  and  full  of  reverent  gladness,  and 
still  others  just  crowding  through  the  door,  seek¬ 
ing  help:  all  looking  eagerly  to  see  wThat  Jesus 
would  do. 

Jesus  is  not  looking  at  the  man  on  his  bed,  but 
His  face  is  lifted  to  the  open  roof,  where  at  the 
four  corners  of  the  square  opening  are  the  eager 
faces  of  the  men  who  have  just  let  the  palsied  man 
down  at  the  Master’s  feet.  From  the  faces  of 
three  of  them,  at  least,  the  most  intent  and  joyous 
faith  shines  forth.  Has  not  Jesus,  within  a  few 
hours,  healed  them?  One  had  been  a  poor,  blind 
man  for  years.  Now  his  glad  eyes  are  drinking 
in  the  goodness  and  mercy  in  the  face  of  the  Lord. 
One  had  been  a  poor  outcast  leper,  but  now  outcast 


48  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


no  more,  his  flesh  soft  as  a  child’s,  his  beaming 
countenance  showing  he  has  not  a  doubt  of  Christ’s 
power  to  heal ;  and  Cheero,  the  man  of  the 
crutches,  lame  no  longer,  his  face  radiant  with 
courage  that  his  friend  and  neighbour  is  about  to 
be  cured. 

Jesus  feels  their  faith,  and  dropping  His  eyes 
to  the  face  of  the  sick  man,  says:  “  Son,  thy  sins 
are  forgiven.”  Strange,  was  it  not?  John  Hope¬ 
less  had  just  been  thinking  how  glorious  it  would 
be  to  be  sinless  like  Jesus,  and  now  the  first  words 
Jesus  says  are,  “  Son,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee.” 

But  this  is  just  what  the  Pharisees  are  watch¬ 
ing  for,  and  they  nod  their  heads  and  wink  at 
each  other  as  much  as  to  say,  “  We  have  got  Him 
now.  That  is  a  claim  to  divinity;  for  no  one  can 
forgive  sins  but  God.”  And  Jesus,  knowing  per¬ 
fectly  what  was  in  their  wicked  thoughts,  went  on 
saying,  “  Why  reason  ye  these  things  in  your 
hearts?  Which  is  easier,  to  say  to  the  sick  of 
palsy,  Thy  sins  are  forgiven;  or  to  say,  Arise,  and 
take  up  thy  bed,  and  walk  ?  ” 

And  John  Hopeless,  hopeless  no  more  forever, 
felt  thrilling  through  and  through  him  not  only 
the  new  physical  strength  he  had  not  known  for 
years,  but  a  new  sense  of  joy  of  soul,  a  rapture 
from  forgiven  sin.  He  was  not  only  a  well  man, 
but  he  was  a  free  man,  a  good  man,  he  had  peace 


TO  JESUS  THROUGH  THE  ROOF  49 


with  God,  and  in  that  happiest  hour  he  had  ever 
known,  he  arose  and  took  his  own  bed  over  his 
shoulders,  and  as  they  crowded  back  before  him 
in  awe  and  wonder,  he  made  his  way  through  the 
crowd  on  his  way  home. 

Thank  God,  Jesus  still  has  power  on  earth  to 
forgive  sins! 

Let  us  not  fail  to  learn  the  special  message  of 
this  particular  conversion — the  wonderful  lesson 
of  the  effective  power  of  cooperation  in  bringing 
people  to  Christ  for  their  salvation.  Only  Jesus 
could  forgive  his  sins  and  heal  his  sickness,  but 
the  four  friends  brought  him  where  Christ  was 
and  secured  his  salvation. 

Christ  saved  Andrew  and  his  friends,  but  it  was 
John  the  Baptist  who  said  to  them:  “  Behold,  the 
Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world!  ”  Jesus  saved  them,  but  John  sent  them. 
Jesus  saved  Peter;  but  it  was  Andrew  who  went 
and  found  and  brought  his  brother  to  Jesus.  We 
may  still  bring  our  friends  to  Jesus  for  Him  to 
save. 

But  let  us  not  stray  away  from  the  four  men 
in  this  story.  Is  there  some  one  who  needs  Jesus 
very  much  whom  you  are  desirous  should  be 
saved  ?  You  have  been  praying  for  that  one  friend 
or  acquaintance  especially.  Well,  how  about  it? 
Are  you  willing  to  be  one  of  the  four  to  bring 


50  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


him  quickly  to  the  Saviour?  God  likes  to  have 
us  answer  our  own  prayers.  Fred  Douglass  says 
he  prayed  to  God  to  set  him  free  from  slavery 
for  a  long  time;  but  when  he  actually  began  to 
run  toward  freedom,  he  got  farther  away  from 
bondage  on  his  own  legs  in  one  minute  than  he 
had  in  a  year  of  praying.  We  must  answer  our 
own  prayers  when  we  can.  If  you  are  willing  to 
be  one,  where  are  you  going  to  look  for  the  other 
three  ?  It  is  well  to  look  close  to  the  man’s  home 
for  one  or  more  of  them.  A  father,  or  mother, 
or  brother,  or  sister,  if  they  are  Christians,  will 
be  good  helpers.  Interest  them  to  help  now.  If 
a  man  is  married,  and  his  wife  is  a  genuine  Chris¬ 
tian,  no  one  will  be  better  for  one  corner.  If  you 
still  need  another,  get  a  new  convert,  get  some 
man  or  woman  who  has  recently  been  healed,  who 
has  found  Christ  in  his  own  salvation.  You 
will  not  have  to  argue  with  them  that  Christ  has 
power  to  forgive  sins;  they  know  it  by  the  joy  of 
their  own  souls.  No  one  will  lift  harder  to  help 
against  all  odds  to  carry  a  helpless  sinner  to  the 
feet  of  Jesus  than  a  new  convert  who  is  all  aglow 
with  the  new  freedom  in  his  own  heart. 

Oh!  Christ  is  in  the  midst,  able  to  save  and 
willing  to  save.  My  friend!  You  who  are  con¬ 
scious  of  your  sin,  and  of  your  own  weakness  to 
overcome  it,  if  you  will  look  in  the  face  of  Jesus 


TO  JESUS  THROUGH  THE  ROOF  51 


as  eagerly  as  John  Hopeless  did,  you  will  not  only 
find  the  forgiveness  of  your  sins,  but  you  will  re¬ 
ceive  a  new  consciousness  of  God-given  power  to 
live  a  new  life  and  a  good  life,  and  you  will  have 
thrilling  you  through  and  through  the  noble  as¬ 
surance  that  your  manhood  is  at  last  fulfilled  in 
Jesus. 

Patrick  O’Shea  has  written  a  very  beautiful 
little  poem  of  love  which  I  like  to  spiritualize  and 
use  as  an  expression  of  my  own  heart’s  experience 
with  Jesus,  my  Lord: 

When  I  found  you — all  nature  seemed  to  call; 
The  silence  of  the  years  that  crept  along 
Now  burst  into  a  madding  lyric  song, 

The  very  skies  took  on  a  different  hue 
When  I  found  you. 

A  little  rill  that  lay  within  my  heart, 

All  frozen  over  with  the  pain  of  years, 

Broke  from  its  dam,  and  like  refreshing  tears 
Swept  through  my  being — bringing  hope  anew 
When  I  found  you. 

The  Pagan  “  I  ”  now  stole  away  in  shame, 

The  angels  seemed  to  peep  from  every  space 
And  all  the  sunbeams  mirrored  your  dear  face. 
At  last  I  knew  that  God  sent  rain  and  dew, 
When  I  found  you. 

And  so  you  brought  unto  my  darkened  soul 
A  wondrous  light — a  knowledge  of  great  things; 
Then  all  the  evil  spirits  took  to  wings 
And  I  at  last  to  my  own  self  was  true, 

When  I  found  you. 


52  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


It  may  be  like  that  to  you  if  you  will  find  Jesus 
and  let  Him  find  you.  All  nature  and  all  life  will 
grow  radiant,  and  new  impulse  and  joy  will  spring 
up  at  His  magic  touch.  All  the  universe  will 
pulsate  with  the  presence  of  the  living,  loving  God. 
The  evil  spirits  that  have  tempted  you  will  take 
wfing,  and  to  your  own  best  self  you  will  be  true 
if  you  will  find  Jesus,  your  Saviour  and  your  Lord. 


IV 


THE  CALLING  OF  MATTHEW  LEVI 

“And  as  he  passed  by,  he  saw  Levi  the  son  of 
Alphceus  sitting  at  the  place  of  toll,  and  he  saith  unto 
him,  Follow  me .  And  he  arose  and  followed  him.” 

— Mark  2 :  14. 

“And  Levi  made  him  a  great  feast  in  his  house: 
and  there  was  a  great  multitude  of  publicans  and  of 
others  that  were  sitting  at  meat  with  them.” 

— Luke  5 : 29. 

“And  as  Jesus  passed  by  from  thence,  he  saw  a 
man,  called  Matthew,  sitting  at  the  place  of  toll:  and 
he  saith  unto  him,  Follow  me.  And  he  arose,  and 
followed  him.”- — Matthew  9 :  9. 

MATTHEW  and  Levi  are  the  same  man. 

It  was  not  an  unusual  thing  in  the  early 
days  of  Christianity  for  a  man  who  had 
been  well  known  under  another  name,  on  becom¬ 
ing  a  disciple  of  Christ,  to  change  his  name.  Thus 
Simon  became  Peter,  and  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the  vio¬ 
lent  persecutor,  after  conversion  became  Paul,  the 
evangelist  and  missionary.  So  Levi,  when  he  shed 
the  old  disgraced  life  of  Roman  tax-collector, 
changed  his  name  to  Matthew,  the  gift  of  God. 

It  is  very  probable  that  Matthew  was  a  cousin 
to  Jesus,  and,  if  so,  had  known  Jesus  all  his  life. 

S3 


1 


54  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Matthew  was  the  black  sheep  in  his  family.  He 
had  taken  office  under  the  hated  Roman  govern¬ 
ment  and  had  become  that  most  despised  of  all 
officers,  a  tax-gatherer.  No  one  ever  likes  to  pay 
taxes,  and  the  most  hateful  of  all  taxes  are  those 
a  subject  people  have  to  pay  to  foreign  despots. 

It  was  especially  galling  for  the  Jews  to  pay 
taxes  to  the  Roman  tax-collectors,  and  when  one 
of  their  own  people  so  forgot  his  racial  and  family 
honour  as  to  become  the  customs  officer  of  this 
hated  Roman  government,  he  was  looked  upon  as 
a  renegade  and  a  traitor.  He  became  largely  an 
outcast  from  society.  They  would  not  even  ac¬ 
cept  his  evidence  in  a  court  of  justice.  This  hatred 
was  carried  so  far,  and  this  ostracism  was  so 
bitter,  that  it  grew  to  be  a  proverb,  if  you  wished 
to  describe  some  one  entirely  outside  the  pale  of 
possible  fellowship,  “  Let  him  be  unto  thee  as  a 
heathen  man  and  a  publican.”  Levi  was  a  publi¬ 
can — no  wonder  that,  when  he  gave  up  his  office 
and  his  despicable  business  to  follow  Christ  as 
His  disciple,  he  threw  away  the  old  name  and  be¬ 
came  Matthew,  the  gift  of  God. 

It  is  quite  likely  that  Jesus  was  the  only  one  in 
the  family  who  had  not  cast  Matthew  off.  But 
you  cannot  imagine  Jesus  refusing  to  speak  to  His 
cousin  because  he  earned  his  living  differently  from 
the  rest  of  the  family,  and  Jesus  longed  to  win 


THE  CALLING  OF  MATTHEW 


55 


Matthew  to  His  service,  to  be  a  preacher  of  the 
good  news  of  salvation.  So  one  day,  as  He  was 
passing  by  his  place  of  business  at  the  Custom 
House,  He  went  in  and  had  a  frank  personal  talk 
with  Matthew  and  offered  to  take  him  as  one  of 
His  special  disciples. 

Matthew  seems  to  have  yielded  at  once  to 
Christ’s  invitation.  He  had  no  doubt  kept  track 
of  the  growing  fame  of  Jesus.  It  is  quite  likely 
that  the  conversion  of  the  man  who  was  let  down 
through  the  roof  had  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
Matthew’s  decision  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ. 
Great  stress  had  been  laid  on  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  in  that  case  of  healing,  which  had  probably 
taken  place  not  far  from  Matthew’s  place  of  busi¬ 
ness.  In  any  event,  he  had  come  to  believe  on 
Jesus  and  probably  had  wished  that  he  might  be¬ 
come  one  of  His  disciples,  and  was  ready  with 
quick  response  when  Jesus  came  and  invited  him 
to  follow  Him. 

He  did  not  dally.  His  resignation  went  in  at 
once.  I  can  imagine  how  he  went  home  and  said: 
“  Mary,  I  have  wonderful  news  for  you !  ” 

“  Why,  what  has  happened  ?  ” 

“  I  had  a  call  from  Jesus  to-day.” 

“  You  did !  What  did  He  want  ?  ” 

“  He  invited  me  to  give  up  this  tax  business  and 
become  one  of  His  disciples.” 


56  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


“  Oh,  Levi,  I  wish  you  would !  Jesus  is  so  good 
and  noble,  one  can  seem  to  see  heaven  in  His 
glorious  face !  ” 

“  Well,  Mary,  I  thought  that  would  please  you, 
and  I  have  accepted.  I  took  Jesus  up  at  once. 
I  just  wrote  my  resignation  to  the  governor  and 
locked  my  desk.  I  am  done  with  it  forever,  and, 
Mary,  if  you  don’t  mind,  I  wish  you  would  never 
call  me  Levi  again.  Suppose  you  call  me 
Matthew:  that  means,  the  gift  of  Cod.  And  I 
feel  that  this  call  of  Jesus  brings  me  very  close  to 
God  and  His  love.  I  want  to  be  done  with  the 
old  life,  and  really  become  a  new  man  in  fellow¬ 
ship  with  Jesus.” 

iS  Oh,  I  am  so  happy,”  exclaimed  Mary.  “  I 
will  love  to  call  you  Matthew,  and  help  you  all  I 
can.  Say,  dear,  wouldn’t  it  be  a  good  thing  to 
give  a  farewell  dinner  to  all  your  old  friends  among 
the  tax-collectors  and  have  Jesus  and  His  other 
disciples  present.  That  would  give  you  a  good 
chance  to  introduce  them  all  to  Jesus.  I  do  not 
see  how  any  one  could  meet  Jesus  socially  and  not 
love  Him,  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  many  of  them 
will  become  His  friends  if  they  have  opportunity 
to  talk  with  Him.” 

“  That  would  be  fine  for  us,  and  fine  for  the 
other  publicans;  but  the  Pharisees  hate  us  so,  and 
we  are  so  unpopular  socially,  Jesus  might  think  it 


THE  CALLING  OF  MATTHEW 


57 


unwise  to  come  to  a  dinner  where  all  the  guests 
were  so  despised,”  said  Matthew. 

But  Mary  shook  her  head  and  said;  “No, 
Matthew,  dear,  Jesus  would  never  look  at  it  that 
way.  If  any  one  is  unpopular,  Jesus  seems  all  the 
more  interested  in  him.  He  never  seeks  after  the 
rich  or  powerful  people,  but  if  any  one,  is  very 
lonely,  or  is  disgraced,  or  in  trouble,  or  sick,  Jesus 
is  sure  to  be  hunting  after  him.  I  am  sure  He 
would  never  stay  away  from  our  dinner  because 
the  guests  were  all  sinners.  They  seem  to  be  the 
very  people  He  is  most  desirous  to  meet.” 

“  Mary,  I  am  glad  you  thought  about  giving  a 
dinner.  I  never  would  have  thought  of  that.  My ! 
It  is  wonderful  to  have  a  wife  like  you.  You  are 
always  thinking  of  just  the  right  thing  at  the  right 
time  to  help  me.” 

“  Matthew,  that  is  a  wife’s  part,  to  think  how 
to  make  our  social  life  a  help  and  a  blessing,  and 
if  Jesus  meets  these  friends  of  yours  at  dinner, 
it  will  give  Him  a  great  opportunity  to  win  their 
friendship.  And,  dear,  have  you  thought  how  it 
will  establish  you  before  all  the  world  as  an  open 
friend  of  Jesus?  ” 

“  No,”  replied  Matthew,  “  I  had  not  thought  of 
that,  but  I  am  willing  for  all  the  world  to  know 
it.” 

“  I  know  you  are,  husband ;  and  there  is  no 


58  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


better  way  than  this  dinner.  Jesus  will  be  the 
honour  guest  at  our  dinner,  and  His  disciples  will 
be  with  Him,  and  you  will  announce  to  them  all 
that  you,  too,  have  become  His  disciple,  and  have 
given  up  all  else  for  that.  It  will  save  you  from 
any  temptation  to  waver  or  ever  turn  back.  Oh, 
I  am  so  glad  you  are  willing  to  have  the  dinner. 
I  love  Jesus  and  I  love  to  do  Him  honour,  and  it 
makes  me  so  happy  to  have  you  and  Jesus  friends, 
the  two  I  love  best  in  all  the  world.  Surely  this 
is  a  new  and  precious  epoch  we  are  entering,  with 
Jesus  at  the  head  of  our  table  and  our  chief  friend 
and  Lord.”  And  so  it  was  a  very  happy  night 
in  the  house  of  Matthew. 

Matthew’s  wife  was  right  about  it.  Jesus  never 
hesitated  a  moment  about  accepting  Matthew’s 
invitation  because  most  of  the  guests  were  publi¬ 
cans  and  sinners. 

But  Matthew  was  right  about  it  stirring  up  a 
good  deal  of  criticism  in  the  community.  Matthew 
and  his  wife  carried  their  plan  through,  and  in¬ 
vited  as  guests  at  the  dinner  they  gave  to  Jesus 
those  who  had  shared  in  Matthew’s  shame  and 
disrepute  as  agents  of  the  Roman  government.  It 
shows  how  genuinely  sincere  Matthew  was  in  his 
repentance  and  confession  of  Christ,  that  he  made 
his  dinner  to  the  Saviour  a  really  “  great  feast,” 
and  filled  it  with  his  fellow  sinners  in  an  effort 


THE  CALLING  OF  MATTHEW 


59 


to  bring  them  in  touch  with  the  Lord  whom  he  had 
determined  henceforth  to  follow.  Having  found 
forgiveness  of  his  sins,  he  longed  to  bring  like 
pardon  to  his  former  associates.  As  these  men 
had  shared  in  his  shame,  he  now  did  his  best  to 
give  them  a  chance  to  share  in  his  honour  and  joy. 

But  as  soon  as  the  dinner  was  heralded  about, 
the  Pharisees  began  to  cry  out,  “  How  is  it  that 
he  eateth  with  publicans  and  sinners  ?  ” 

But  Jesus  had  His  answer  ready.  “  They  that 
are  whole  have  no  need  of  a  physician,  but  they 
that  are  sick:  I  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but 
sinners.”  And  so  Jesus  seized  a  criticism  and 
made  it  the  keynote  of  His  Gospel.  And  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  never  so  successful  in  doing  the  full  work 
of  Christ  among  men  as  when  it  is  striking  that 
note  loud  and  clear.  Jesus  came  to  seek  and  to 
save  the  lost.  He  came  to  seek  sinners  and  to 
save  them  from  their  sins,  and  when  the  Church 
is  hot  on  the  trail  of  the  sinner,  it  is  doing  its 
noblest  work  in  building  up  noble  Christian  char¬ 
acter.  And  whenever  the  Church  loses  the  evan¬ 
gelistic  note  and  makes  the  chief  mission  of  the 
Church  the  culture  of  a  high  sainthood  among  its 
members,  it  begins  to  lose  its  power  to  produce 
saints.  It  is  when  in  the  spirit  of  Christ  we  for¬ 
get  ourselves  in  our  anxiety  for  the  salvation  of 
sinners,  that  Christ  is  able  to  develop  most  clearly 


60  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


His  blessed  image  in  us.  The  Church  of  Jesus 
exists  not  to  coddle  saints,  but  to  collar  sinners; 
and  when  we  live  in  that  spirit,  the  Church  thrives, 
and  not  only  has  power  to  win  sinners,  but  culti¬ 
vate  saints.  Think  of  any  great  triumphant  epoch 
of  Christianity  and  you  will  note  the  truth  of  this 
statement.  During  all  the  years  of  Paul's  mission¬ 
ary  travels,  while  he  was  spreading  the  fame  of 
Jesus  to  the  ends  of  the  known  world,  and  de¬ 
veloping  the  highest  moral  character  among  the 
people  to  whom  he  ministered  as  well  as  in  his 
own  mind  and  heart,  the  great  cry  of  his  soul 
everywhere  was,  “  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus,  and 
thou  shalt  be  saved."  In  the  days  of  the  Wesleys 
and  Whitefield,  and  the  building  up  of  early 
Methodism,  it  was  the  same  note  that  was  struck 
constantly.  John  Wesley  was  the  great  outdoor 
preacher,  not  only  in  the  woods,  but  in  the  stone- 
quarries  and  in  the  streets.  Wherever  sinful  men 
and  women  could  be  gathered  together  to  hear,  he 
was  ready  to  cry  out  the  message  of  Christ  as  the 
Saviour  of  sinners.  Let  us  never  forget  that  the 
college,  and  the  university,  and  the  Christian  hos¬ 
pital,  and  the  library,  and  all  the  glorious  blessings 
that  attend  Christian  civilization  are,  after  all, 
aftermath,  the  result  of  the  preaching  of  Christ 
as  the  Saviour  of  lost  sinners.  It  is  the  Church 
that  is  on  fire  with  Christ’s  longing  to  save  sinners 


THE  CALLING  OF  MATTHEW 


61 


that  is  ready  to  sacrifice  to  build  all  those  institu¬ 
tions  of  culture  and  mercy,  which  can  conserve, 
but  never  produce,  the  glorious  results  of  Chris¬ 
tian  evangelism.  Christian  missions  also  are  the 
fruit  of  a  soul-saving  Christianity  at  home. 

Not  only  is  this  true,  but  all  these  fortresses  of 
Christianity  in  missions,  and  hospitals,  and  col¬ 
leges  should  hold  it  to  be  their  supreme  purpose  to 
honour  and  glorify  the  Christ  in  whose  teaching 
and  sacrifice  they  had  their  birth  and  reason  for 
existence.  The  Christian  college  must  be  a  furnace 
of  loyalty  to  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  sinners.  The 
Christian  hospital,  the  hotel  of  God,  should  breathe 
always  the  spirit  of  Him  who  said  to  the  man  who 
was  sick  of  the  palsy,  “  But  that  ye  may  know 
that  the  Son  of  man  hath  authority  on  earth  to  for¬ 
give  sins,  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise,  take  up  thy  bed, 
and  go  unto  thy  house.” 

There  is  another  thought  about  this  dinner 
Matthew  gave  to  Jesus:  It  brought  holy  associa¬ 
tions  into  his  home.  It  was  a  sort  of  dedication 
of  his  home  to  the  service  of  Christ.  All  our 
homes  should  be  dedicated  to  the  service  of  Christ. 
I  have  never  seen  any  way  of  doing  this  so  beau¬ 
tiful  in  its  influence  on  the  entire  family  and  so 
sweet  in  its  fragrant  memories  afterward  as  the 
old-fashioned  family  altar,  when  father  and 
mother  and  children  every  day  invite  Jesus  to  a 


62  WONDERFUL  BIBLE"  CONVERSIONS 


fellowship  of  song  and  Bible  reading  and  prayer 
together  at  the  home  altar.  Children  brought  up 
in  a  home  like  that  are  bound  to  Christ  by  tender 
memories  that  weave  all  the  sacred  and  holy  loves 
of  childhood  into  their  religious  faith.  No  gold 
mines  of  earth  are  rich  enough  to  buy  from  me 
the  memories  of  the  family  altar  in  front  of  an 
old  stone  fireplace  in  a  log  cabin  that  has  been 
dust  and  ashes  for  many  a  long  year. 

Some  who  have  read  the  foregoing  paragraphs 
should  find  in  the  story  of  Matthew’s  dinner  sug¬ 
gestions  which  may  open  the  door  to  rich  bless¬ 
ings  to  your  own  soul.  Jesus  has  been  present. 
As  you  have  been  reading,  He  has  paused  by  your 
side  and  looked  deep  into  your  eyes.  Fie  has  been 
saying  to  you,  quietly  and  tenderly,  “  Follow  Me !  ” 
Will  you  follow  Matthew’s  example  here  and  now? 
Matthew  seized  his  opportunity  promptly.  He  did 
not  wait;  he  did  not  argue;  he  did  not  parley  or 
dally — he  arose  at  once  and  followed  Jesus,  out 
of  disgrace  and  dishonour  into  a  worthy  Christian 
life.  He  made  his  acceptance  of  Christ’s  invita¬ 
tion  just  as  definite  and  certain  as  possible.  He 
made  a  public  dinner  to  Jesus  and  burned  all  his 
bridges  behind  him.  He  introduced  Jesus  to  every 
friend  he  had. 

Will  you  follow  his  example?  Some  of  your 
friends  are  greatly  influenced  by  you ;  not  only  your 


THE  CALLING  OF  MATTHEW 


63 


own  salvation,  but  theirs,  hangs  on  the  balance. 
If  you  will  obey  Christ  and  openly  confess  Him 
now,  you  will  turn  the  scale  for  them  in  favour  of 
Jesus.  It  will  be  a  blessed  thing  to  make  your 
coming  not  only  joyous  to  your  own  heart,  but  a 
joy-bringer  to  the  homes  of  your  friends.  Rise 
up  and  follow  Jesus  now! 


V 


THE  NIGHT  JESUS  SPENT  WITH 
ZACCH/EUS  OF  JERICHO 

"  And  Jesus  said  unto  him ,  To-day  is  salvation 
tome  to  this  house,  forasmuch  as  he  also  is  a  son  of 
Abraham.  For  the  Son  of  man  came  to  seek  and  to 
save  that  which  was  lost.” — Luke  19:  9-10. 

ZACCHZEUS  was  the  chief  internal  reve¬ 
nue  collector  in  the  important  city  of 
Jericho.  He  had  made  a  lot  of  money, 
and  had  become  a  very  rich  man  as  tax-collector 
for  the  despised  Roman  government.  But  there 
was  good  stuff  in  Zacchaeus;  he  had  a  good  mind 
and  really  desired  to  be  a  much  better  man  than 
he  was.  A  tax-collector  in  Jericho  at  that  day  was 
in  a  hard  place.  On  one  side  the  unscrupulous 
and  corrupt  Roman  governors  were  out  to  make 
all  the  money  they  could,  and  on  the  other  side  the 
equally  unscrupulous  and  shrewd  Jewish  merchants 
were  scheming  to  pay  as  little  as  possible  to  a 
government  they  hated  and  counted  it  a  virtue  to 
cheat.  There  was  almost  unlimited  opportunity 
for  graft  for  a  smart,  tactful  collector,  and  a  very 

dangerous  berth  for  one  who  tried  to  be  honest. 

64 


WITH  ZACCHiEUS  OF  JEKICHO  65 


Zacchseus  had  evidently  been  tactful  and  had  be¬ 
come  a  rich  man. 

Now  Zacchseus,  when  news  reached  his  office 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  coming  up  the  road  on 
His  way  to  Jerusalem,  was  very  much  interested 
and  even  excited.  He  had  heard  a  good  deal  about 
Jesus.  Some  time  before  another  tax-collector  in 
Jerusalem  had  given  a  big  dinner  to  Jesus  and 
had  become  one  of  His  disciples.  This  man,  Levi, 
who  from  the  day  of  the  beginning  of  his  disciple- 
ship  to  Christ  had  called  himself  Matthew,  had 
been  a  well-known  collector,  and  Zacchseus  had 
been  acquainted  with  some  other  publicans  or  col¬ 
lectors  who  had  attended  that  dinner.  Some  of 
the  reports  that  had  come  to  him  from  these 
friends  had  greatly  interested  him,  and  had  made 
him  determined  to  see  Jesus  himself,  if  the  op¬ 
portunity  ever  came  his  way;  so  Zacchseus  locked 
up  his  desk  and  went  out  into  the  street  where  the 
crowd  was  already  gathering  to  see  Jesus.  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  excitement  in  the  town  over 
news  which  had  just  come  in  that  morning,  that 
a  very  well-known  blind  beggar,  an  interesting 
character  named  Bartimseus,  known  to  Zacchseus 
and  many  others  in  Jericho,  had  practically  held 
up  the  procession  as  Jesus  was  passing  by,  and 
had  been  healed,  and  could  now  see  as  well  as  any 
one,  and  who,  because  of  his  great  joy  over  receive 


66  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


in g  his  sight,  was  accompanying  Jesus  and  His 
party  and  attracting  nearly  as  much  attention  as 
Jesus  Himself.  All  these  things  working  together 
gave  Zacchaeus  an  irresistible  desire  to  see  Christ. 

Now,  in  a  crowd,  Zacchaeus  was  at  a  great  dis¬ 
advantage.  He  had  inherited  from  his  ancestry  a 
pair  of  very  short  legs,  and  the  average  crowd  was 
so  much  taller  than  he,  that  he  did  not  stand  much 
chance  of  getting  to  see  Christ.  But  Zacchaeus 
had  been  a  little  man  all  his  life,  and  had  learned 
a  good  many  ways  of  overcoming  this  handicap, 
and  noticing  a  sycamore  tree  with  wide-spreading 
branches  standing  near  where  Jesus  would  have  to 
pass  as  He  came  into  town,  he  quickly  climbed  up, 
and  soon  was  in  a  position  where  he  could  see 
Christ  better  than  the  tallest  man  in  the  crowd. 
So,  when  Jesus  came,  Zacchaeus  had  an  unob¬ 
structed  view.  First  coming  on  ahead  was  a  group 
led  by  Bartimaeus.  He  was  very  happy,  and  to 
every  one  of  his  acquaintances  he  would  cry  out: 
“  See  what  has  happened  to  me!  Jesus  of  Naza¬ 
reth  did  it!  Why,  He  not  only  opened  my  eyes, 
but  He  has  forgiven  my  sins.  I  feel  like  a  new 
man.  I  just  want  to  thank  God  all  the  time.  Oh, 
friends,  I  believe  Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  the  Christ 
foretold  by  the  prophets ;  surely  no  one  else 
could  work  such  miracles  as  He  has  wrought  on 


WITH  ZACCHiEUS  OF  JERICHO  67 


All  this  excited  Zacchaeus  more  and  more. 
Down  in  his  soul  Zacchaeus  was  greatly  dissatis¬ 
fied  with  himself.  He  was  very  unpopular  with 
many  people  in  the  town  because  of  his  business, 
but  he  was  more  unpopular  with  himself  than  with 
any  one  else.  He  knew  his  life  was  not  right  in 
the  sight  of  God;  but  he  had  gotten  into  an  evil 
tangle,  and  his  life  was  all  a  wicked  snarl,  and 
he  did  not  know  how  to  unravel  it.  As  he 
listened  to  Bartimaeus,  whom  he  remembered  well 
as  a  sad  old  beggar,  and  saw  how  happy  he  was 
now,  and  heard  his  shouts  of  praise  to  God  and 
his  thanks  to  Jesus  for  his  sight  and  for  the  for¬ 
giveness  of  his  sins,  down  deep  in  his  wretched 
heart  Zacchaeus  said  to  himself:  “Oh,  if  Jesus 
would  only  take  my  affairs  in  hand  and  unravel 
and  straighten  out  this  sad  mess  I  have  made  of 
my  life,  and  forgive  my  sins!  Oh,  if  I  could  only 
be  as  happy  as  Bartimaeus,  I  would  gladly  give 
up  all  my  money.” 

And  then  Jesus  came,  with  His  disciples,  and 
the  crowd  following,  and  Zacchaeus  had  no  eyes 
for  any  one  save  Jesus.  What  a  man  Jesus  was 
to  him !  It  seemed  to  Zacchaeus  he  had  never  seen 
a  real  man  before.  Such  a  face!  So  full  of 
strength,  mingled  with  gentleness !  All  power  and 
wisdom  seemed  to  be  there,  and  yet  surmounting 
them  pity  and  love  seemed  to  rule.  Before 


68  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Zacchaeus  had  climbed  into  the  tree  his  great  fear 
had  been  that  he  would  not  get  to  see  Jesus;  now 
his  great  anxiety  was  that  Jesus  would  not  see 
him — he  felt  that  he  could  not  endure  having 
Christ  pass  on  without  seeing  him;  and  just  then 
Christ  lifted  that  wonderful  face  and  their  eyes 
met,  and  each  gazed  deep  into  the  eyes  of  the 
other.  In  that  moment  Zacchaeus  was  possessed 
with  a  desire  to  open  his  heart  to  Christ  and  tell 
Him  all  his  troubles  and  do  whatever  Jesus  said 
he  ought  to  do.  Jesus,  looking  into  Zacchaeus, 
soul,  loved  him.  Once  before  He  had  looked  into 
eyes  full  of  that  same  hunger  and  failed  to  save 
the  man  He  loved. 

Men  in  whom  Jesus  is  greatly  interested,  and 
whom  He  loves  and  seeks  with  all  the  energy  of 
His  divine  nature  to  bless  and  save,  do  not  al¬ 
ways  yield  to  His  entreaties.  When  Jesus  was 
here  among  men,  men  met  Him  and  looked  into 
His  glorious  eyes,  and  Jesus  loved  them;  and  some 
were  saved,  but  some  failed  of  salvation.  Do  you 
remember  the  young  man,  very  rich,  and  high  in 
place  and  power,  who  met  Jesus  joyfully?  He  had 
no  doubt  been  listening  to  Jesus  at  one  of  His 
meetings,  and  had  a  great,  overpowering  emotion 
suddenly  welling  up  in  his  soul  to  be  one  of  Christ’s 
near  friends  and  disciples,  and  came  running  to 
Christ,  as  He  was  going  away,  and  said :  “  Good 


WITH  ZACCHiEUS  OF  JERICHO  69 


Teacher,  what  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life?” 
He  was  full  of  enthusiasm ;  his  face  was  all  aglow 
with  his  gallant  desire  to  lead  some  heroic  crusade 
by  which  he  might  win  the  great  prize  of  eternal 
life. 

But  Jesus  threw  him  back  on  the  old  ten  com¬ 
mandments  and  he  was  disappointed  and  said: 
“  All  these  things  have  I  observed  from  my  youth 
up.”  He  was  a  fine,  clean,  wholesome,  upstanding 
young  man,  and  the  writer  says,  “  Jesus  loved 
him.”  And  the  Saviour  made  a  dead  set  for  his 
soul.  He  saw  the  weak  spot  of  self-indulgence, 
his  love  for  riches,  and  He  looked  deep  into  his 
eyes  with  infinite  love  and  said:  “  One  thing  thou 
lackest  yet:  sell  all  that  thou  hast,  and  distribute 
unto  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in 
heaven:  and  come,  follow  me.”  Think  what  a 
chance  he  had!  Jesus  was  willing  to  take  him  on 
as  one  of  the  immortals  whose  names  and  whose 
usefulness  will  live  forever!  He  offered  him  a 
chance  to  share  the  glory  of  Peter  and  John  for¬ 
ever  !  But  he  went  away  sad,  with  a  cloud  on  his 
brow. 

Some  of  you  may  be  saying  in  your  hearts,  “  If 
I  could  have  stood  in  the  presence  of  Jesus  as  he 
did,  I  would  have  yielded.”  But  I  do  not  know. 

Edwin  Markham  published,  in  a  recent  number 
of  Hearsfs  International  Magazine,  a  little  poem 


70  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


entitled,  “  The  Man  from  the  Cross,”  in  which  he 
voices  that  same  faith: 

‘  What  would  you  do  if  suddenly  there  at  the  door 

Shakespeare  should  enter  the  room,  the  world’s 
great  lover?  ” 

Need  I  to  answer?  The  moment  he  stept  on  the 
floor 

We  would  rise  and  uncover ! 

%i  But  what  would  you  do  if  Another  still  greater 
came. 

He  who  has  scars  on  His  hands,  the  Truth’s  de¬ 
fender?  ” 

All  hearts  would  thrill,  would  flash  to  a  single 
flame : 

We  would  kneel  and  surrender! 

But  can  you  be  sure  you  would  surrender,  if 
you  will  not  yield  to  Him  now?  See  how  the 
great  Jewish  race  as  a  race  turned  from  Him! 

In  the  same  magazine  where  Markham  voiced 
this  faith,  James  Oppenheim,  a  Jewish  writer,  in 
the  next  number,  this  tragic  fact  laments: 

Ho!  the  mightiest  of  our  young  men  was  born 
under  a  star  in  the  midwinter. 

His  name  is  written  on  the  sun  and  it  is  frosted 
on  the  moon.  .  .  * 

Earth  breathes  him  like  an  eternal  spring;  he  is 
a  second  sky  over  the  earth. 

j  Ho!  we  have  turned  against  the  mightiest  of  our 
young  men 

And  in  that  denial  we  have  taken  on  the  Christ, 

1  And  the  two  thieves  beside  the  Christ, 


WITH  ZACCH2EUS  OF  JERICHO  71 


And  the  Magdalen  at  the  feet  of  the  Christ, 

And  the  Judas  with  thirty  silver  pieces  selling  the 
Christ, 

And  our  twenty  centuries  in  Europe  have  the  shape 
of  a  Cross.  *  »  . 

May  not  the  same  tragedy  overtake  you!  To¬ 
day  Christ  stands  before  you  as  He  did  before  that 
rich  young  ruler,  as  He  did  before  the  great  Jew¬ 
ish  race.  They  failed.  God  forbid  that  you  shall 
fail  also.  Forgiveness,  salvation,  eternal  life  are 
within  your  reach.  For  your  soul’s  sake,  do  not 
fail ! 

Christ,  looking  deep  into  the  eyes  of  Zacchaeus, 
saw  the  hunger  of  his  soul  and  determined  to  re¬ 
lieve  it.  I  think  there  is  something  very  significant 
in  the  word  Jesus  uses  to  show  the  compelling 
force  of  His  feeling,  as  He  says:  “  Zacchaeus, 
make  haste,  and  come  down;  for  to-day  I  must 
abide  at  thy  house.*’ 

It  was  not  “  I  would  like  to  go  home  and  talk 
with  you ;  ”  or,  “  if  you  would  be  pleased  to  have 
me,  I  will  go.”  It  is  more  compelling  than  any¬ 
thing  like  that.  A  soul,  a  family,  a  home  is  at 
stake,  and  Jesus  says  “  I  must  abide  at  thy  house.” 
And  Zacchaeus  felt  the  same  way,  and  he  made 
haste  and  came  down  and  received  Jesus  joyfully. 

Dwight  L.  Moody,  the  greatest  expert  in  soul¬ 
winning  in  his  day,  said  that  right  there,  between 
the  limb  of  that  sycamore  tree  and  the  ground. 


72  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Zacchseus  was  converted ;  and  that  was  the  source 
of  the  joy  he  was  able  to  put  into  his  reception  of 
Jesus  when  he  reached  the  ground.  Certain  it  is 
that  no  other  experience  known  to  man  gives  such 
noble  and  exquisite  joy  as  the  consciousness  that 
one's  sins  are  forgiven  and  that  the  soul  is  ac¬ 
cepted  by  the  Saviour,  unless  it  is  the  twin  joy  of 
realizing  that  we  have  led  another  soul  into  the 
light  of  salvation.  Those  who  have  known  the 
gladness  of  meeting  Jesus  in  their  own  soul's  ac¬ 
ceptance,  know  something  of  the  relief  and  infinite 
peace  which  was  at  the  heart  of  the  joy  with  which 
Zacchseus  led  Christ  to  his  home  that  day  in 
Jericho. 

It  did  not  matter  to  Zacchseus  or  to  Jesus  that 
the  self-righteous  critics  cast  sour  looks  at  their 
backs  as  they  walked  down  the  street  toward 
Zacchseus’  house,  saying,  “  He  is  gone  in  to  lodge 
with  a  man  that  is  a  sinner."  Zacchseus  was  the 
very  man  Jesus  came  to  save.  He  was  a  man  who 
had  lost  the  way  and  whose  affairs  were  in  a 
tangle  and  who  longed  for  goodness  and  knew 
not  how  to  acquire  it;  so  Jesus  went  home  with 
him  to  “  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost.” 

It  was  a  great  day  in  the  house  of  Zacchseus. 
As  soon  as  they  were  in  the  house,  and  Zacchseus 
had  introduced  his  family,  he  at  once,  before  he 
would  sit  down  in  Christ's  presence,  made  a  full 


WITH  ZACCH2EUS  OF  JERICHO  73 


and  complete  confession.  He  struck  no  false  note. 
He  went  down  to  bedrock  facts.  He  stood  before 
Christ  and  said:  “Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my 
goods  I  give  to  the  poor;  and  if  I  have  wrongfully 
exacted  aught  of  any  man,  I  restore  fourfold.” 
It  was  an  honest  confession.  Jesus,  who  knew 
what  was  in  man,  knew  that  it  was  from  the 
depths  of  his  soul,  and  He  accepted  it  at  par  value. 
Jesus  said  to  him:  “To-day  is  salvation  come  to 
this  house,  forasmuch  as  he  also  is  a  son  of  Abra¬ 
ham.  For  the  Son  of  man  came  to  seek  and  to 
save  that  which  was  lost.” 

What  did  Jesus  mean  by  the  expression  “  son  of 
Abraham”  as  applied  to  Zacchaeus?  We  may  be 
sure  it  was  in  no  narrow  racial  sense.  He  was  a 
son  of  Abraham  in  the  fact  that  he  had  faith  in 
God  and  repented  of  his  sin  and  sought  to  do 
right. 

There  is  a  great  suggestion  in  this  confession  of 
Zacchaeus  that  may  be  of  vital  importance  to  some 
of  you.  I  refer  to  his  declaration  that  if  he  has 
wrongfully  exacted  aught  from  any  man,  he  will 
make  it  right  to  the  last  limit  of  his  ability. 

There  are  many  men  and  many  women  who  will 
never  find  forgiveness  for  their  sins  and  never 
know  the  joy  that  came  to  Zacchaeus  until  they 
have  made  honest  restoration  of  ill-gotten  gains. 
God  will  be  no  party  to  giving  peace  to  a  sinful 


74  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


soul  who  intends  to  cheat  his  way  into  salvation. 
Absolute  honesty  is  essential  to  your  salvation, 
and  if  you  have  wronged  any  one  and  it  is  pos¬ 
sible  for  you  to  make  it  right,  Christ  will  not,  can¬ 
not,  accept  your  repentance  until  you  have  made 
restoration  to  the  best  of  your  ability. 

I  have  known  a  great  many  cases  like  that,  and 
when  restoration  was  made,  peace  flowed  like  a 
river  into  the  soul  of  the  one  making  it.  My 
friends,  if  you  have  wronged  any  one  by  word  or 
deed,  financially  or  otherwise,  do  not  delay  to  make 
it  right  to  the  last  limit  of  your  power,  and  God 
will  not  only  receive  your  repentance  and  forgive 
your  sins,  but  He  will  pour  out  upon  you  a  bless¬ 
ing  so  rich  in  joy  that  not  only  your  own  soul,  but 
all  your  household,  will  overflow  with  the  blessed 
visitation  of  the  divine  and  loving  Christ  to  your 
heart  and  home. 


VI 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON  AND  HIS  ELDER 

BROTHER 

A  SERMON  FOR  MEN  ONLY 

“l  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father” — Luke  15:  18. 

SOMEWHERE  in  the  Valley  of  the  World 
a  father  lived  with  his  two  sons,  Prodigal 
and  Selfishness.  They  lived  on  a  great 
plantation,  in  a  splendid  mansion  home,  set  in  the 
midst  of  a  garden  of  rare  flowers  and  beautiful 
fountains,  surrounded  by  orchards  of  delicious 
fruits,  bordering  on  wide-reaching  and  fertile 
grain  fields  which,  in  turn,  touched  hands  with 
vast  and  rolling  pastures,  well  watered  with 
springs  and  flowing  streams,  along  the  banks  of 
which  herds  of  cattle  and  sheep  and  goats  grew 
and  flourished  and  fattened  for  the  market. 

The  father  was  a  noble  character,  whose  broad 
mind  and  generous  heart  brought  him  the  love  and 
devotion  of  an  army  of  servants  who  cared  for 
the  home  and  the  plantation,  as  well  as  the  reverent 
and  affectionate  regard  of  the  neighbours  far  and 
near,  so  that  for  many  miles  in  every  direction  he 
was  known  as  the  Father  of  the  Valley. 

75 


76  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


The  father,  though  a  good  neighbour  and  a 
good  citizen,  gave  himself  above  all  else  to  his 
duties  as  a  father.  His  heart  centered  in  his  two 
sons,  Prodigal  and  Selfishness.  The  names,  as  I 
have  given  them,  reverse  the  order  of  their  birth, 
for  Selfishness  was  the  elder  of  the  two.  But 
Prodigal,  being  the  baby  of  the  family,  was  long 
of  first  importance;  besides,  this  is  peculiarly  his 
Story. 

The  mother  of  the  boys  died  when  Prodigal  was 
born.  She  went  bravely  down  into  the  valley  and 
shadow  of  death  after  her  second  boy,  as  every 
mother  does  after  her  child,  and  though  she  found 
him  and  gave  him  life,  she  could  not  come  back 
with  him. 

The  noble  father  courageously  took  up  the  dou¬ 
ble  burden  and  faithfully  sought  to  be  both  father 
and  mother  to  his  motherless  sons.  He  devoted 
all  the  strength  of  his  fine  mind  and  kind  heart 
as  well  as  all  his  resources  of  every  kind  to  the 
bringing  up  of  his  sons  to  be  good  and  worthy 
men. 

Parents  who  have  brought  up  a  family  of  chil¬ 
dren,  and  teachers  who  have  seriously  and  faith¬ 
fully  dealt  with  the  development  of  childhood, 
know  well  that  just  as  you  never  see  two  human 
faces  exactly  alike,  so  every  boy  or  girl  is  a  sepa¬ 
rate  study  in  personality,  with  their  individual 


THE  PBODXGAL  SON 


77 


problems  to  present  to  parent  or  teacher.  So  it 
proved  at  the  old  home  plantation  in  the  Valley  of 
the  World.  Father  had  his  hands  full  with  those 
two  boys.  Never  were  two  children  born  of  one 
pair  of  parents  more  unlike  than  were  Selfish¬ 
ness  and  Prodigal. 

Selfishness,  the  elder  brother,  was  one  of  those 
mature  young  fellows  who  never  seemed  to  be  a 
boy.  He  was  old-mannish  while  still  a  boy  in 
years.  He  was  a  serious-minded  youth  and  very 
regular  in  his  habits.  He  was  never  known  to 
waste  anything.  While  he  was  still  a  boy  he  very 
carefully  laid  away  and  kept  all  his  things.  He 
was  given  toys  like  other  boys,  and  though  he 
never  cared  for  them  much  and  seldom  played, 
when  he  was  a  grown  man  he  had  all  his  toys  and 
all  his  boyhood  belongings.  He  did  not  keep  them 
because  he  expected  to  use  them  or  get  any  pleas¬ 
ure  out  of  them,  but  because  he  was  so  constructed 
that  he  never  gave  anything  away.  No  one  about 
the  place  could  remember  that  Selfishness  had  ever 
in  his  life  given  any  one  anything  save  a  frown  or 
a  rebuke.  He  was  very  unpopular  with  the  serv¬ 
ants,  and  very  early  became  a  grief  to  his  father 
because  of  his  cold,  calculating  disposition. 

Prodigal  went  to  the  other  extreme.  When 
he  was  a  small  boy,  he  was  all  jollity  and  mirth 
and  love.  He  filled  his  father’s  heart  with  un- 


78  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


mixed  gladness.  All  the  servants  loved  him.  And 
while  he  was  very  small,  if  he  did  not  interfere 
with  his  own  methodical  habits,  even  Selfishness 
had,  sometimes,  been  known  to  unbend  into  smiles 
at  his  antics,  but  never  enough  to  give  him  any 
of  his  own  belongings;  and  as  Prodigal  grew  older, 
Selfishness  came  to  regard  him  as  an  unmitigated 
nuisance. 

As  Prodigal  grew  older  his  wild,  ungovemed 
impulses,  which  had  been  overlooked  or  forgiven 
because  of  his  youth,  continually  got  him  into  trou¬ 
ble  and  brought  grief  to  his  father.  If  the  mother 
had  lived,  it  might  have  been  that  her  gentle  sway 
would  have  been  able  to  keep  the  confidence  of 
her  baby  boy  up  into  manhood,  and  to  have  held 
him  back  from  the  perils  which  ere  long  beset 
his  unwary  feet.  As  it  was,  he  soon  got  away 
from  his  father’s  guidance.  The  father  loved  him 
always,  was  ever  kind  and  generous,  but  the  boy 
grew  more  self-willed  and  more  indifferent  to  the 
grief  his  wasteful  and  ungoverned  life  brought  to 
the  great-hearted  father. 

This  estrangement  grew  rapidly  as  he  began  to 
make  friends,  not  with  the  best,  but  with  the  most 
thoughtless  and  least  profitable  of  the  young  peo¬ 
ple  of  the  neighbourhood,  both  among  the  young 
men  and  young  women.  He  was  very  popular 
with  this  class.  His  great  virility,  his  gay  spirits, 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON 


79 


his  really  generous  disposition,  together  with  the 
fact  that  he  had  a  good  deal  of  money  at  his  dis¬ 
posal,  caused  him  not  only  to  be  petted  and  flat¬ 
tered  by  the  younger  and  gayer  set,  but  to  be  much 
sought  after  by  some  designing  people  who  hoped 
to  fatten  on  what  he  wasted  in  his  folly. 

The  good  father  sought  to  do  his  duty  by  the 
son  he  loved  with  all  his  heart.  He  reasoned  with 
him,  pointed  out  the  dangers  that  lay  ahead  in  his 
path;  but  Prodigal  was  young  and  self-willed,  and 
thought  his  father  was  old-fashioned  and  did  not 
understand  how  things  had  changed  since  he  was 
a  boy,  so  he  grew  still  farther  and  farther  away 
from  his  noble  father,  who  often  wept  and  prayed 
until  late  at  night  for  his  wayward,  but  beloved, 
son. 

Selfishness,  instead  of  doing  what  he  could  to 
keep  Prodigal  contented  at  home,  only  widened 
the  breach  by  his  continual  nagging  at  his  brother’s 
folly,  until  at  last  Prodigal  determined  to  get  away 
from  all  parental  restraint  and  out  of  reach  of  his 
elder  brother’s  faultfinding. 

So  one  day,  after  a  night  of  dissipation  which 
had  brought  a  patiently  tender,  but  earnest,  rebuke 
from  the  long-suffering  father,  Prodigal  said: 
“  Father,  give  me  the  portion  of  thy  substance  that 
falleth  to  me.” 

The  father  was  deeply  grieved  and  hurt,  but 


SO  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


after  reflection  and  prayer  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  nothing  but  the  hard  experiences  of  life  would 
ever  bring  Prodigal  to  his  senses.  The  sons,  of 
course,  could  not  legally  take  their  portion  mitil 
the  father’s  death,  except  by  his  free  gift.  Under 
the  Jewish  custom,  Prodigal,  as  the  younger  son, 
would  be  entitled  to  one-third  and  Selfishness  to 
two-thirds  of  the  estate.  So  this  great-souled  fa¬ 
ther  made  an  estimate  and  divided  the  property 
so  that  Prodigal  could  be  at  liberty  to  take  his 
portion.  It  seems  to  have  been  given  him  in  per¬ 
sonal  property,  for  the  Saviour  says  that  not  many 
days  after  the  first  conversation  Prodigal  “  gath¬ 
ered  all  together  and  took  his  journey  into  a  far 
country.” 

Selfishness,  the  elder  brother,  could  hardly  re¬ 
strain  his  secret  delight  in  getting  rid  of  Prodigal. 
His  own  supreme  desire  was  to  get  money,  and  so 
long  as  Prodigal  remained  at  home  with  his  ex¬ 
pensive  and  wasteful  habits,  with  the  property 
undivided,  he  stood  a  chance  to  lose  a  part  of  his 
own  prospective  inheritance.  So  he  was  greatly 
pleased  when  Prodigal  took  his  departure. 

But  it  was  a  sad  day  for  the  father.  To  him 
Prodigal  was  still  his  baby,  the  last  gift  of  his 
beloved  wife,  and  only  the  hope  that  the  hard  ex¬ 
periences  in  the  Far  Country  would  teach  lessons 
of  wisdom  and  send  his  favourite  son  back  to  his 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON 


81 


loving  arms  sustained  him.  After  Prodigal  had 
disappeared  from  sight  in  the  distance,  he  went  to 
the  secret  chamber  of  his  house  to  plead  with  God 
to  watch  over  him  and  in  His  own  good  time  to 
bring  him  back  to  him  again. 

Prodigal  had  already  made  some  friends  in  the 
Far  Country.  He  had  met  them  at  occasional 
parties  among  the  fast  set  in  the  nearest  big  town 
to  his  farm  home,  and  had  been  greatly  taken  with 
them.  They  never  seemed  to  be  troubled  with 
any  conscientious  scruples.  They  drank  strong 
liquors  without  compunction,  gambled  recklessly, 
and  the  girls  were  not  so  prudish  or  overly  modest 
as  the  girls  among  his  farmer  neighbours.  All 
these  visitors  from  the  Far  Country  seemed  to 
think  of  was  having  a  good  time,  and  their  idea  of 
having  a  good  time  seemed  to  be  to  throw  them¬ 
selves  thoughtlessly  into  the  carrying  out  of  any 
giddy  idea  that  entered  their  minds,  without  stop¬ 
ping  to  ask  any  sober  questions  about  right  and 
wrong.  Indeed,  they  ridiculed  the  very  idea  that 
some  things  were  right  and  others  were  wrong. 
These  gay  travelers  had  assured  Prodigal  that  if 
he  would  only  move  to  the  Far  Country,  his  good 
looks  and  fine  figure  and  money  would  put  him 
at  the  forefront  of  the  gay  set,  and  he  would  have 
the  time  of  his  life.  So  it  was  with  high  hopes 
of  endless  pleasure  and  gayety  and  an  escape  from 


82  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


all  the  sober  and  borish  questions  concerning 
morals  and  religion,  that  Prodigal  drove  his 
chariot  toward  the  Far  Country. 

At  last  he  reached  the  gayest  city  in  the  Far 
Country.  He  had  come  well  equipped  with  the 
best  chariot  and  the  best  horses  that  the  country 
afforded,  but  he  soon  saw  that  his  city  acquaint¬ 
ances  thought  he  looked  quite  shabby  for  the  city, 
and  as  he  was  an  easy  spender  they  introduced  him 
to  a  fashionable  inn,  and  helped  him  to  acquire  a 
turnout  and  clothing  that  marked  him  as  one  of 
the  swells  and  gay  bloods  of  the  city.  He  scat¬ 
tered  his  money  recklessly,  thinking  he  must  make 
an  impression,  and  soon  the  news  spread  abroad 
among  the  frothiest  and  fastest  outer  fringes  of 
society  in  the  most  reckless  city  of  even  the  Far 
Country,  that  a  green  duckling  was  here  to  be 
plucked. 

His  father’s  cleanly  life,  and  his  brother’s  ab¬ 
stinence  from  all  sorts  of  pleasures  that  cost 
money,  had  restrained  him  at  home;  but  now  the 
leash  was  off,  and  he  drank  recklessly  of  the  wine 
that  gives  its  colour  to  the  cup,  which  at  last  bites 
like  a  serpent  and  stings  like  an  adder.  The  drink¬ 
ing  soon  led  him  into  the  fascinations  of  games 
of  chance,  and  from  drinking  and  gambling  it  was 
an  easy  step  to  the  lure  and  entanglement  with 
wicked  women.  A  good  woman  is  a  young  man’s 


THE  PBODIGAL  SON 


83 


best  friend;  but  a  bad  woman  is  his  worst  enemy. 
The  Bible  does  not  exaggerate  in  the  least  when 
it  says  of  a  bad  woman  that  “  her  house  takes  hold 
on  hell.” 

Prodigal  had  up  to  this  time  lived  a  clean  life, 
so  far  as  women  were  concerned;  but  he  had  heard 
stories  among  the  gay  drinkers  and  gamblers,  with 
whom  he  had  become  hail-fellow-well-met,  that 
stirred  his  blood  and  made  him  feel  that  he  was 
quite  behind  the  times.  So  he,  fired  with  strong 
drink,  was  quite  ready  for  that  third  degree  in  sin 
which  marks  a  man  as  well  entered  in  the  race  for 
ruin.  If  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Proverbs  had 
been  there  one  night  he  would  have  seen  Prod- 
igal— 

“  Passing  through  the  street  near  her  comer ; 

And  he  went  the  way  to  her  house, 

In  the  twilight,  in  the  evening  of  the  day, 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  and  in  the  darkness. 

And,  behold,  there  met  him  a  woman 

With  the  attire  of  a  harlot,  and  wily  of  heart. 

“  So  she  caught  him,  and  kissed  him,  .  .  . 

With  her  much  fair  speech  she  causeth  him  to 
yield; 

With  the  flattering  of  her  lips  she  forceth  him 
along. 

He  goeth  after  her  straightway 

As  an  ox  goeth  to  the  slaughter  .  „  . 

Till  an  arrow  strike  through  his  liver; 

As  a  bird  hasteth  to  the  snare, 

And  knoweth  not  that  it  is  for  his  life.” 


84  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


So  Prodigal  went  the  broad  way  that  leads  to 
perdition.  All  that  saved  him  was  that  his  money 
ran  out.  He  had  money  enough  to  have  gone  the 
pace  at  home  all  his  life,  but  the  more  expensive 
vices  of  the  city  scattered  his  store  to  the  four; 
winds,  and  it  was  not  long  until  he  got  to  the 
bottom  and  realized  that  a  fool  and  his  money 
had  soon  parted,  and  that  he  had  spent  his  all — 
and,  when  it  was  all  gone  and  he  could  no  longer 
pay  for  the  revelry,  the  friends  he  had  made  in 
the  Far  Country  deserted  him  as  quickly  as  rats 
will  flee  from  a  sinking  ship.  Friends  made  in 
the  ways  of  vice  never  stand  by  in  adversity. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  when  he  had  got 
down  to  the  bottom  and  had  nothing  left,  he  began 
to  think  of  the  farm  again.  He  did  not  think 
of  going  back  to  his  old  home  yet,  but  just  to  get 
away  from  the  city  and  get  out  under  the  sky  in 
God’s  open  air  again.  The  city  that  had  brought 
him  so  near  to  hell  and  utter  ruin,  oh,  how  he 
loathed  it! 

Notice  what  Jesus  says:  “And  when  he  had 
spent  all,  there  arose  a  mighty  famine  in  that  coun¬ 
try;  and  he  began  to  be  in  want.  And  he  went 
and  joined  himself  to  one  of  the  citizens  of  that 
country.” 

He  was  not  hired ;  he  felt  that  he  must  get  out 
of  the  city,  so  he  went  and  begged  a  chance  to 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON 


85 


live  on  a  farm  in  the  Far  Country.  The  fanner 
let  him  stay,  but  Prodigal  soon  found  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  a  farm  worker  in  the  Far  Country 
and  the  old  homeland.  The  farmer  sent  him  to 
herd  swine — the  lowest  grade  of  employment  in 
all  the  land.  The  hogs  fed  on  the  fruit  of  the 
carab  tree — a  bean  that  grew  in  pods,  much  like 
the  seed  pod  on  a  honey  locust  tree,  and  as  Prod¬ 
igal  saw  the  hogs  devouring  them,  he  was  glad  to 
share  with  them  to  satisfy  his  hunger.  And  then 
at  last,  eating  carab  husks  with  Syrian  hogs,  he 
came  to  days  of  reflection  and  said  to  himself: 
“  How  many  hired  servants  of  my  father’s  have 
bread  enough  and  to  spare,  and  I  perish  here  with 
hunger !  ” 

Now  while  Prodigal  is  thinking  about  the  old 
homestead,  let  us  go  back  and  see  how  fares  the 
father  and  Selfishness  these  days. 

The  noble  father  has  gone  on  with  his  pure 
life,  full  of  generosity  and  kind  deeds  to  all,  be¬ 
loved  by  all  the  neighbourhood;  but  many  have 
commented  on  the  fact  that  there  is  a  look  of  sad¬ 
ness  in  his  face  that  has  grown  since  Prodigal  left 
home.  Never  a  day  has  passed  but  the  father  has 
kept  his  tryst  with  God  in  the  secret  chamber, 
where  he  has  prayed  with  a  burdened  heart  not 
only  for  Prodigal  but  also  for  Selfishness. 

Selfishness  has  been  as  hard  a  problem  for  the 


86  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


father  as  Prodigal.;  As  he  has  grown  older,  the 
greedy,  miserly  streak  in  his  make-up  has  grown 
more  and  more  marked.  He  has  made  friends 
with  no  one  save  certain  scheming  and  unscrupu¬ 
lous  money-getters  who  have  an  unsavoury  repu¬ 
tation  for  their  hard  and  unfeeling  conduct  in  their 
treatment  of  the  poor.  They  do  not  often  come  to 
the  house,  for  they  are  fully  as  disagreeable  to  the 
great-hearted  father  as  were  the  giddy  and  profli¬ 
gate  friends  of  Prodigal;  but  Selfishness  is  often 
in  counsel  with  them  in  devising  questionable 
money-getting  schemes,  and  the  father  grieves  and 
feels  that  he  has  been  sadly  bereft  of  both  his 
sons. 

However,  he  has  never  quite  lost  hope  that 
Prodigal  may  yet  repent  and  return  to  him,  and 
every  day  when  he  comes  out  from  his  hour  of 
secret  devotion  he  looks  down  the  road  on  which 
his  boy  will  come  if  he  returns  from  the  Far  Coun¬ 
try.  Every  time  Selfishness  has  heard  any  ru¬ 
mours  of  his  brother’s  revels  in  dissipation,  he  has 
gloated  over  it  to  his  father;  but  the  father  still 
prays,  and  waits,  and  hopes. 

And  now  at  last  Prodigal  is  longing  for  home 
and  father.  For  a  long  time  during  his  wasteful 
days,  when  he  was  plunging  madly  into  sinful  de¬ 
bauch  with  wicked  men  and  equally  wicked  women, 
wickedness  which  he  knew  would  break  his  fa- 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON 


87 


tiler's  heart,  he  did  his  best  to  put  father  out  of 
his  mind.  But  now,  with  only  the  dumb  hogs  for 
company,  he  has  time  to  think,  and  father  looms 
large  in  his  memory.  Methinks  I  hear  him  say: 
“  Father!  What  a  wonderful  man  Father  wasj 
When  have  I  seen  a  man  like  Father!  I  have  not 
seen  a  single  man  to  be  compared  to  Father  since 
I  left  home.  Why,  the  best  of  men  in  the  Far 
Country  would  look  like  pigmies  and  dwarfs  along¬ 
side  of  Father !  How  big-hearted  and  fine  he  was ! 
He  was  good  to  everybody.  How  kind  he  was  to 
the  servants!  If  they  were  sick  or  in  trouble  he 
was  father  to  them,  too.  When  a  stranger  came 
by,  there  was  always  a  spare  place  at  the  table 
and  a  spare  bed  for  the  night.  And  if  a  neigh¬ 
bour  got  into  trouble  or  was  sick.  Father  was  al¬ 
ways  on  hand  to  help.  My!  what  a  father  he 
was  to  me!  Even  when  I  tried  him  by  my  wild, 
wasteful  ways,  how  patient  and  tender  he  was! 
I  used  to  think  he  was  too  old-fashioned.  What 
a  fool  I  was  to  be  ashamed  of  a  glorious  father 
like  that!  And  I  got  so  tired  and  bored  at  his 
family  prayers,  every  morning  and  evening.  Oh, 
how  I  would  like  to  hear  Father  pray  again !  ” 
And  then  Prodigal's  heart  broke.  It  had  been 
frozen  a  long  time,  but  the  great  thaw  had  come. 
No  south  wind  off  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  no  Chinook 
wind  up  in  the  Northwest,  ever  blew  with  such 


88  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


power  as  the  wind  of  the  Holy  Spirit  blew  on 
Prodigal’s  soul  then.  There  were  only  God  and 
the  hogs  to  see  as  he  sobbed  and  wept.  At  first  it 
was  only  the  grief  of  despair.  But  when  a  sinner, 
tired  of  sin,  begins  to  weep  over  his  sins,  hope 
soon  sprouts  under  the  melting  ice  of  the  thawing 
heart.  And  very  soon  I  hear  Prodigal  crying  out 
between  his  sobs:  “  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  fa¬ 
ther,  and  will  say  unto  him,  Father,  I  have  sinned 
against  heaven,  and  in  thy  sight:  I  am  no  more 
worthy  to  be  called  thy  son:  Make  me  as  one  of 
thy  hired  servants.” 

Ah,  that  sounds  hopeful!  Pride  is  gone.  Self- 
will  is  gone.  Egotism  and  insolence  are  gone. 
Humility  is  at  the  wheel.  When  a  sinful  man 
begins  to  talk  to  himself  like  that,  any  good  thing 
may  come  to  pass.  So  I  am  not  astonished  that 
Jesus  tells  us,  “And  he  arose,  and  came  to  his 
father.”  He  had  gone  into  the  Far  Country  with 
a  fine  turnout.  He  had  the  best  chariot  the  coun¬ 
try  town  could  boast  and  the  best  horses  on  the 
great  home  farm.  But  he  goes  back  penniless. 
He  goes  back  all  the  weary  miles  on  foot.  But 
with  every  step  hope  springs  stronger  in  his  heart, 
and  after  a  while  he  comes  in  sight  of  home.  Oh ! 
was  there  ever  a  sight  so  glorious  as  that!  And 
then  he  sees  some  one  standing  on  the  porch  look¬ 
ing  down  the  lane  toward  him.  How  his  heart 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON 


89 


beats  in  his  throat  as  he  exclaims:  “  Why,  it’s  Fa¬ 
ther!  It  seems  as  if  he  were  looking  for  me!  It’s 
just  the  way  he  used  to  stand  and  peer  down  the 
lane  when  he  was  expecting  me  home  from  town ! 
But  he  would  not  know  me  in  these  rags  and  with 
all  this  scraggly  beard  on  my  face!  It’s  awful 
to  come  home  to  Father  like  this!  Why!  Look! 
He  sees  me!  He  knows  me!  He’s  coming!  He’s 
running !  ” 

And  then  Prodigal  runs,  too.  They  meet.  They 
are  in  each  other’s  arms.  They  cannot  talk.  They 
just  hug  each  other  close  and  mingle  their  tears. 

But  Prodigal  feels  something  must  be  said,  and 
at  last  he  begins  to  unload  that  wonderful  speech 
he  had  been  repeating  over  and  over  again  all  the 
way  home:  “  Father,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven, 
and  in  thy  sight:  I  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called 
thy  son.”  That  is  as  far  as  he  ever  got  with  it. 
There  was  a  lot  more  about  being  taken  on  as  a 
servant.  But  the  father  would  not  listen  to  it. 
He  had  plenty  of  servants;  his  dear  old  heart  was 
hungry  for  sons.  So  he  brushed  it  all  away  with 
the  shout  to  his  servants,  who  were  now  crowding 
around,  sobbing  and  crying  and  laughing  together, 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  father  they  all  loved. 
“  Bring  forth  quickly,”  he  cried,  “  the  best  robe, 
and  put  it  on  him ;  and  put  a  ring  on  his  hand,  and 
shoes  on  his  feet:  and  bring  the  fatted  calf,  and 


90  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


kill  it,  and  let  us  eat,  and  make  merry:  for  this 
my  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again ;  he  was  lost, 
and  is  found.”  And  that  old  farmhouse  went 
gloriously  alive  with  joy. 

Yet,  amid  all  that  gladness,  there  was  one 
gloomy  face,  and  that  was  the  face  of  Selfishness. 
Selfishness  had  been  out  in  the  field  when  Prodigal 
came  home,  and  by  the  time  he  came  in  for  supper 
the  celebration  had  already  begun,  and  to  his 
amazement  and  disgust,  when  he  came  near  to  the 
old  farmhouse,  he  heard  music  and  saw  that  every 
window  was  lighted  and  that  dancing  was  going 
on.  He  was  angry  in  a  moment.  Surely  Father 
must  be  getting  in  his  dotage  to  allow  such  waste 
and  folly.  And  when  he  got  near  enough,  he 
called  one  of  the  servants  and  demanded:  “  What 
does  all  this  foolishness  mean?” 

“  Why,  where  have  you  been?  Don’t  you 
know?  Your  brother,  Prodigal,  has  come  home 
from  the  Far  Country,  and  your  father  is  so  happy 
about  it  that  he  has  killed  the  fatted  calf,  because 
he  has  received  him  safe  and  sound.” 

Then  Selfishness  was  angrier  than  ever.  He 
had  hoped  he  had  seen  the  last  of  Prodigal,  and 
here  he  was  the  center  of  all  this  joy.  He  would 
not  go  into  the  house,  and  the  servant  went  and 
told  the  father. 

The  father,  full  of  joy  and  good  will  toward  all 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON 


91 


the  world,  went  out  to  him  and  begged  him  to 
come  in  and  share  in  the  welcome  to  his  brother. 
But  Selfishness  sullenly  said:  “  Lo,  these  many 
years  do  I  serve  thee,  and  I  never  transgressed  a 
commandment  of  thine;  and  yet  thou  never  gavest 
me  a  kid,  that  I  might  make  merry  with  my 
friends:  but  when  this  thy  son  came,  who  hath 
devoured  thy  living  with  harlots,  thou  killest  for 
him  the  fatted  calf.,, 

Poor  Selfishness!  If  the  father  had  wished,  he 
could  have  said :  “  Son,  when  have  you  ever  de¬ 
sired  to  make  merry  with  any  one?  Your  friends 
are  like  you,  so  selfish  and  cold-hearted  there  is  no 
happy,  wholesome  merriment  in  them.”  But  the 
father  is  too  tender-hearted  to  answer  him  un¬ 
kindly,  so  he  patiently  reasons  with  him:  “  Son, 
thou  art  ever  with  me,  and  all  that  is  mine  is  thine. 
But  it  was  meet  to  make  merry  and  be  glad:  for 
this  thy  brother  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again;  and 
was  lost,  and  is  found/’ 

Poor  Selfishness!  His  road  home  was  thornier 
than  Prodigal’s. 

Some  who  have  read  this  old  but  ever  new  story 
have  felt  in  your  deepest  soul  that  it  is  God’s  mes¬ 
sage  to  you.  Do  not  let  it  fail  of  its  purpose! 
God  is  that  Father;  you  are  that  Prodigal  from 
the  Far  Country.  Come  home  to  your  Father’s 
heart,  here  and  now ! 


92  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


And,  greedy  Selfishness,  you  come  too!  Deep 
down  in  your  conscience  the  Holy  Spirit  is  con¬ 
victing  you  of  sin,  and  you  realize  that  you  need 
the  forgiving  love  of  your  Heavenly  Father  as 
certainly  as  Prodigal.  There  is  room  for  you 
both  in  the  Father’s  heart  and  home.  Come ! 


VII 


THE  TWO  DINNERS  IN  SIMON’S  HOUSE 

A  SERMON  FOR  WOMEN 

“And  behold ,  a  ‘Woman  who  was  in  the  city,  a 
sinner;  .  .  .  brought  an  alabaster  cruse  of  oint¬ 

ment. ” — Luke  7 :  37. 

“Mary  therefore  took  a  pound  of  ointment  of 
pure  nard ,  very  precious ,  and  anointed  the  feet  of 
Jesus.” — John  12:3. 

“  And  while  he  was  in  Bethany  in  the  house  of 
Simon  the  leper,  as  he  sat  at  meat,  there  came  a 
woman  having  an  alabaster  cruse  of  ointment  of 
pure  nard,  very  costly ;  and  she  brake  the  cruse,  and 
poured  it  over  his  head.” — Mark  14:3. 

“Now  when  Jesus  was  in  Bethany,  in  the  house 
of  Simon  the  leper,  there  came  unto  him  a  woman 
having  an  alabaster  cruse  of  exceeding  precious  oint¬ 
ment,  and  she  poured  it  upon  his  head,  as  he  sat  at 
meat,” — Matthew  26 : 6. 

THERE  must  undoubtedly  have  been  two 
dinners  at  the  same  house  of  Simon. 
The  same  man  and  the  same  house, 
though  in  one  case  he  is  spoken  of  as  one  of  the 
Pharisees,  and  in  the  latter  case  he  is  called  Simon 
the  leper.  The  first  dinner  is  recorded  only  by 
Luke,  and  took  place  early  in  the  ministry  of 

93 


94  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Jesus.  The  latter  dinner  is  recorded  by  Matthew, 
Mark  and  John,  and  occurred  in  the  Saviour’s  last 
week  on  earth.  The  women  who  are  the  chief 
actors  in  each  occasion  are  entirely  different 
women. 

I  am  aware  that  St  Augustine  gives  it  as  his 
opinion  that  Mary  of  Bethany,  the  sister  of 
Martha  and  Lazarus,  is  the  woman  in  each  case. 
But  there  is  nothing  to  substantiate  that  theory. 
He  offers  no  evidence  whatever  to  back  up  his 
opinion,  and  Luke’s  story  is  so  graphically  told 
and  so  full  of  detail  that  we  are  very  sure  Mary 
of  Bethany  is  not  the  woman  in  that  case.  Be¬ 
sides  there  is  not  the  slightest  suggestion  in  any  of 
the  Bible  stories  or  in  any  of  the  early  traditions 
coming  down  from  those  days  among  the  early 
Christians,  that  suggests  such  a  thing  as  any  so¬ 
cial  impropriety  or  lack  of  moral  character  in 
Mary  of  Bethany.  There  is  not  even  a  hint  that 
she  had  lived  a  life  of  vice. 

Neither  is  there  any  reason  for  coupling  the 
name  of  Mary  Magdalene  with  this  first  dinner, 
the  story  of  which  is  told  by  St.  Luke.  Christian 
artists  assumed  that  because  Luke  records  that 
Christ  cast  seven  devils  out  of  Mary  of  Magdala 
she  was  the  woman  who  came  to  the  Master  in 
tears  of  repentance  at  this  first  dinner  in  Simon’s 
house.  But  there  is  no  real  reason  for  such  an 


TWO  DINNERS  IN  SIMON’S  HOUSE  95 


idea.  Practically  all  the  Bible  tells  us  about  Mary 
Magdalene  is  in  that  brief  paragraph  of  Luke’s 
when  he  says:  “And  with  him  the  twelve,  and 
certain  women  who  had  been  healed  of  evil  spirits 
and  infirmities:  Mary,  that  was  called  Magdalene, 
from  whom  seven  demons  had  gone  out,  and 
Joanna  the  wife  of  Chuzas  Herod’s  steward,  and 
Susanna,  and  many  others,  who  ministered  unto 
them  of  their  substance.” 

This  simple  mention  tells  us  Mary  belonged  to 
Magdala,  one  of  the  thriving  towns  which  then 
clustered  round  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  she  was 
called  the  Magdalene  to  distinguish  her  from  other 
Marys.  She  was  undoubtedly  of  good  birth,  a 
Jewish  gentlewoman,  since  Luke  gives  her  pre¬ 
cedence  over  the  wife  of  Herod’s  steward.  Her 
time  seems  to  have  been  at  her  disposal,  and  be¬ 
ing  well-to-do,  she  was  able  to  minister  financially 
to  the  needs  of  Jesus  and  His  disciples.  The  rea¬ 
son  for  her  great  devotion  to  Christ  is  found  by 
Luke  in  the  fact  that  out  of  her  went  seven  devils. 
Whatever  sins  of  temper  or  conduct  might  be  sug¬ 
gested  by  that  statement,  there  is  nothing  in  the 
account  to  suggest  social  immorality,  since  she  was 
in  accepted  friendship  with  the  other  devout 
women  whose  characters  were  above  reproach.  So 
we  are  forced  to  the  opinion  that  the  early  Chris¬ 
tian  art  which  made  the  very  name  Magdalene  a 


96  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


synonym  for  harlot  is  cruelly  unjust  and  entirely 
without  reason. 

About  this  unknown  woman  who  came  to  Jesus 
in  the  house  of  Simon  the  Pharisee,  we  know 
nothing  save  what  is  told  us  by  Luke.  We  know 
from  Luke’s  story  that  she  was  not  an  invited 
guest,  but  having  heard  that  Christ  was  there,  and 
desiring  above  all  else  on  earth  the  opportunity  of 
showing  her  faith  in  Him,  and  receiving  from 
Him  the  forgiveness  of  her  many  sins,  she  went 
in,  uninvited,  to  Simon’s  house,  and  presented  her¬ 
self  in  tears  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  as  He  reclined, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  day,  at  the  dinner 
table. 

How  did  this  woman  come  to  know  about  and 
believe  on  Jesus?  I  have  my  own  idea,  and  while 
I  have  no  evidence  to  sustain  it,  I  think  it  ex¬ 
tremely  probable  and  as  good  as  any  other. 

We  have  another  case  of  a  sinful  woman  in  the 
New  Testament  story,  a  woman  who  had  been 
taken  prisoner  in  the  act  of  her  sin  and  was 
brought  to  Jesus  while  He  was  teaching  in  the 
Temple.  And  these  Scribes  and  Pharisees  brought 
the  shamed  and  embarrassed  woman  to  Christ,  not 
because  they  were  especially  grieved  or  shocked  at 
her  sin,  but  hoping  to  use  her  as  a  trap  in  which 
they  might  catch  the  Saviour  and  have  an  excuse 
to  bring  Him  before  the  Sanhedrim  for  trial. 


TWO  DINNERS  IN  SIMON’S  HOUSE  97 


You  recall  the  story  which  John  tells  in  the 
eighth  chapter  of  his  Gospel:  They  brought  the 
poor  woman  right  into  the  midst  of  the  group 
gathered  about  Jesus,  and  sat  her  down  before 
Him  and  said:  “  Teacher,  this  woman  hath  been 
taken  in  adultery,  in  the  very  act.  Now  in  the 
law  Moses  commanded  us  to  stone  such :  what  then 
sayest  thou  of  her?  ”  John  says  that  they  put  it 
to  Him  that  way  “  trying  him,  that  they  might 
have  whereof  to  accuse  him.”  But  Jesus  stooped 
down,  and  with  His  finger  wrote  on  the  ground. 
But  as  they  sneered,  and  continued  to  press  their 
question,  thinking  they  had  embarrassed  Him,  He 
straightened  up  and  said  calmly  and  quietly,  “  He 
that  is  without  sin  among  you,  let  him  first  cast  a 
stone  at  her.”  If  Jesus  had  fired  a  shotgun  into 
that  crowd.  He  could  not  have  scattered  them 
faster;  one  after  another  they  sneaked  out  of  the 
Temple,  and  after  a  while  Jesus  looked  up  and 
said:  “  Woman,  where  are  they?  did  no  man  con¬ 
demn  thee?”  And  she  said:  “  No  man,  Lord.” 
And  Jesus  said:  “  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee:  go 
thy  way;  from  henceforth  sin  no  more.” 

Well,  that  is  all  that  is  told  us  in  the  Bible 
about  that  woman,  but  I  think  I  know  something 
more  about  her.  I  think  she  went  home  full  of 
wonder  about  it  all  and  full  of  love  and  gratitude 
to  Jesus.  The  old  life  seemed  hateful  to  her,  and 


98  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


she  determined  to  keep  faith  with  Christ  and  sin 
no  more,  and  so  she  did  not  go  back  any  more  to 
the  old  revelling  places,  and  one  of  her  friends,  a 
woman  we  will  call  Migdol,  who  really  liked  her, 
hunted  her  up  at  her  home,  wanting  to  know  what 
had  happened.  So  she  told  her  story  of  how  she 
had  been  dragged  to  the  Temple  in  disgrace  and 
how  Jesus  had  saved  her.  And  as  she  tells  the 
story  I  draw  near  and  listen:  “And,  oh,  Migdol,  I 
wish  you  too  could  see  Jesus;  He  is  the  most  won¬ 
derful  man  I  ever  dreamed  of.  I  felt  so  safe  with 
Him.  My  sins  never  seemed  so  bad,  so  black,  as 
when  I  looked  in  His  kind  eyes,  and  yet  they 
looked  at  me  as  if  He  understood,  and  yet  loved 
me,  and  wanted  to  help  me  to  be  good.  And  when 
He  said:  ‘Neither  do  I  condemn  thee;  go  thy 
way:  from  henceforth  sin  no  more/  I  felt  as 
though  a  great  door  shut  to  behind  me,  between 
me  and  all  that  old  wicked  life,  and  I  am  deter¬ 
mined  that  I  will  die  before  I  will  ever  go  back 
into  it  again.  I  just  feel  that  it  would  break  His 
heart  if  I  did,  and  I  could  not  bear  to  hurt  and 
grieve  Him.” 

Migdol  listened  in  astonishment  and  said,  “  I 
did  not  know  there  was  any  one  like  that.” 

“  I  did  not  either  until  I  saw  Him,  but,  Migdol, 
I  feel  like  a  new  woman  since  I  looked  in  His  eyes, 
and  He  spoke  so  kindly  to  me.  I  have  got  my  old 


TWO  DINNERS  IN  SIMON’S  HOUSE  99 


self-respect  back  again,  and  with  God’s  help  I  am 
going  to  be  a  good  woman  and  keep  faith  with 
Jesus  and  ‘  sin  no  more.’  ” 

Migdol’s  eyes  were  full  of  tears  now,  and  she 
said  with  infinite  longing  in  her  voice:  “  I  wish  I 
could  see  Him,  too.  I  am  awfully  sick  and  tired 
of  this  wretched  life  I  have  been  leading.  Where 
do  you  suppose  I  might  find  Him?  ” 

“  Why,  Migdol,  I  can  tell  you  where  you  can 
find  Him  this  very  evening.  One  of  my  neigh¬ 
bours  has  a  son  who  delivers  goods  from  the  store 
at  the  house  of  Simon,  the  rich  Pharisee,  and  the 
steward  told  him  that  the  famous  Rabbi  people  are 
talking  about  so  much,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  was  to 
be  a  guest  at  dinner  there  to-day.” 

“Well,”  said  Migdol,  “I  am  going  to  walk 
around  that  way  a  little  before  dinner  time,  and  I 
pray  God  I  may  get  to  see  Him.  If  it  could  do 
me  as  much  good  as  it  has  you,  it  would  be  worth 
traveling  a  week  to  find  Him.” 

Then  Migdol  went  home,  greatly  excited  with 
this  new  idea  about  Jesus. 

Poor  woman!  Her  sins  were  giving  her  only 
misery  and  disappointment.  She  was  feeding  on 
ashes.  The  pleasures  of  sin  are  only  a  scaffold 
to  build  wicked  habits  that  become  cruel  chains. 
But  her  friend’s  story  about  Jesus  and  the  won¬ 
derful  change  that  had  been  wrought  in  her  gave 


100  -WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Migdol  hope  that  possibly  there  was  a  chance  for 
her,  too,  to  escape  the  horrible  slough  of  sin  and 
be  a  good  and  happy  woman  again. 

As  she  thought  and  planned  how  she  might  get 
to  see  Him,  she  noticed  a  beautiful  alabaster  cruse 
of  precious  ointment,  and  she  took  it  up,  saying 
to  herself,  “  I  will  take  it  with  me,  and  who  knows 
but  I  may  get  a  chance  to  anoint  this  wonderful 
friend  of  poor,  sinful  girls.”  And  so  she  went 
away  down  the  street,  and  as  she  drew  near 
Simon's  fine  house,  it  being  a  mild  day,  the  doors 
were  open  and  she  saw  Jesus,  already  in  His 
place,  with  the  other  guests  at  the  table.  As  she 
looked  on  that  wonderful  face  her  heart  went  out 
to  Him  in  confidence  and  trust.  No  woman  ever 
looked  on  the  face  of  Jesus  without  trusting  Him, 
and  Migdol,  forgetting  everything  save  that  here 
was  her  chance  to  get  to  Jesus  and  show  how  she 
trusted  Him  and  honoured  Him,  went  right  on 
into  the  house,  uninvited  though  she  was. 

She  stood  for  a  moment  behind  Him,  silently 
weeping,  and  then  suddenly  her  heart  broke  and 
she  flung  herself  down  at  the  Master's  feet  and  her 
flood  of  bitter  tears  of  repentance  for  her  sins  and 
all  the  waste  of  her  wretched  life  fell  on  the  feet 
of  Jesus.  She  had  a  wealth  of  beautiful  hair  that 
in  the  violence  of  her  grief  had  been  loosened  and 
now  fell  about  her  shoulders.  She  took  the  long 


TWO  DINNERS  IN  SIMON’S  HOUSE  101 


locks  of  her  hair  and  wiped  her  tears  from  the 
feet  of  the  Saviour. 

As  soon  as  she  could  calm  her  grief  a  little,  she 
remembered  the  precious  box  of  alabaster  she  had 
brought.  She  was  so  glad  now  that  she  had 
brought  it.  She  wished  she  might  anoint  that 
beautiful  head;  but  no,  her  sins  were  too  great, 
she  would  anoint  His  dear  feet,  and  show  her 
humility  and  faith  all  the  more.  The  perfume 
filled  the  room  and,  of  course,  her  conduct  was  the 
center  of  all  eyes  and  absorbed  both  host  and 
guests.  Jesus  understood  perfectly.  He,  who 
knew  what  was  in  man,  knew  from  the  start  that 
here  was  a  poor  sinful  soul,  repenting  of  sin  and 
seeking  for  forgiveness  and  salvation;  and  forth 
from  His  great  heart  of  love  went  waves  of  heal¬ 
ing  mercy.  But  Simon,  his  Pharisee  host,  was 
full  of  critical  questioning.  As  he  looked  on  he 
said  to  himself,  “  This  man,  if  he  were  a  prophet, 
would  have  perceived  who  and  what  manner  of 
woman  this  is  that  toucheth  him,  that  she  is  a 
sinner.” 

Now  Jesus  knew  what  was  going  on  in  Simon’s 
mind  as  well  as  the  great  surrender  that  was  taking 
place  in  the  heart  of  Migdol,  so  He  turned  to 
Simon  and  said:  “  Seest  thou  this  woman?  I 
entered  into  thy  house,  thou  gavest  me  no  water 
for  my  feet;  but  she  hath  wetted  my  feet  with  her 


102  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


tears,  and  wiped  them  with  her  hair.  Thou  gavest 
me  no  kiss:  but  she,  since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath 
not  ceased  to  kiss  my  feet.  My  head  with  oil  thou 
didst  not  anoint:  but  she  hath  anointed  my  feet 
with  ointment.  Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee,  Her 
sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven ;  for  she  loved 
much:  but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same 
loveth  little.,,  And  turning  to  Migdol,  whose 
tears  of  repentance  had  turned  to  a  summer  rain 
of  joy  at  His  wonderful  words  to  Simon,  Jesus 
looked  into  her  radiant  face,  shining  like  a  rain¬ 
bow  through  her  tears,  and  said,  “  Thy  sins  are 
forgiven,  thy  faith  hath  saved  thee;  go  in  peace.” 
And  Migdol  went  out  from  Simon’s  dinner,  walk¬ 
ing  on  air,  to  be  henceforth  the  devoted  and  joyous 
friend  and  witness  to  Christ  and  His  power  to 
forgive  sins. 

Now  just  a  word  about  this  second  dinner:  It 
was  evidently  a  community  dinner  to  Jesus,  held 
in  Simon’s  house  because  it  was  the  largest  and 
most  commodious  of  any  in  the  group.  See  what 
John  says  of  it:  “  So  they  made  him  a  supper 
there:  and  Martha  served;  but  Lazarus  was  one 
of  them  that  sat  at  meat  with  him.  Mary  there¬ 
fore  took  a  pound  of  ointment  of  pure  nard,  very 
precious,  and  anointed  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  wiped 
his  feet  with  her  hair;  and  the  house  was  filled 
with  the  odour  of  the  ointment.” 


TWO  DINNERS  IN  SIMON’S  HOUSE  103 


Matthew  and  Mark  also  tell  this  incident  as 
occurring  during  this  last  week  of  the  Saviour’s 
life.  They  do  not  name  Mary  as  the  woman,  no 
doubt  because  when  they  wrote  their  Gospels  Mary 
was  still  living  and  they  did  not  wish  to  call  spe¬ 
cial  attention  to  her;  neither  do  they  mention 
Lazarus,  because  the  Jews  might  kill  him  to  de¬ 
stroy  his  witness  to  Christ.  Matthew  and  Mark 
state  that  Mary  broke  her  box  of  ointment  above 
the  head  of  Jesus.  No  doubt  she  did  first  anoint 
the  Saviour’s  head  and  afterward  His  feet  also, 
and  the  humility  of  that  act  so  impressed  itself  on 
John’s  mind  that  when,  as  an  old  man,  nearly  or 
quite  ninety,  he  came  to  write  his  Gospel,  he  refers 
only  to  the  anointing  of  the  feet ;  and  as  Mary  by 
that  time  had  gone  on  to  heaven,  as  well  as  Laz¬ 
arus,  who  is  supposed  to  have  lived  thirty  years 
after  Jesus  raised  him  from  the  dead,  John  gives 
both  their  names. 

Evidently  since  the  first  dinner  to  Jesus  in 
Simon’s  house,  Simon  had  become  a  Christian  and 
was  a  close  friend  of  that  little  family  of  Bethany 
where  Martha  and  Mary  and  Lazarus  lived,  for 
they  were  all  guests  at  this  second  dinner  and 
Martha  had  charge  of  the  serving.  And  I  have 
no  doubt  that  Simon  had  told  Mary  how  the 
woman  at  the  first  dinner  had  anointed  the  feet 
of  Jesus  and  wiped  them  with  her  hair,  and  now 


104  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS' 


feeling  that  the  end  was  near  in  the  earthly  life 
of  her  Lord,  Mary  shows  her  humility  by  follow¬ 
ing  the  example  of  the  woman  who  “  was  a  sin¬ 
ner, no  doubt  feeling  in  her  grateful  heart  that 
it  was  only  the  grace  of  God  which  had  given  her 
own  life  a  sheltered  pathway  that  made  the  dif¬ 
ference  between  them,  and  so  she,  too,  kneels  at 
Jesus'  feet  and  anoints  them  and  wipes  them  with 
her  hair. 

So  we  have  these  three  women  who  loved  Jesus 
and  found  in  Him  a  perfect  Saviour  and  the  for¬ 
giveness  of  their  sins — Mary  of  Bethany,  who 
early  gave  her  heart's  deepest  love  to  Jesus  in  the 
sheltered  quiet  of  her  own  peaceful  home;  Mary 
Magdalene,  a  woman  of  high  social  position,  but 
under  an  evil  dominion  with  sevenfold  cords  that 
only  Christ  had  power  to  break  and  set  her  free  to 
a  life  of  sweet  and  beautiful  Christian  ministry, 
which  was  specially  honoured  by  her  Lord  by  His 
appearance  and  words  of  love  to  her  on  the  first 
Easter  morning;  and  poor  Migdol,  wasted  and 
torn  by  many  sins,  yet  healed  and  comforted  and 
saved  by  the  same  Lord  in  whom  the  Marys  trusted 
and  found  their  all. 

Jesus  is  still  the  woman’s  friend.  Many  women 
who  will  read  this  study  have  felt  their  need  of  a 
friend,  a  Saviour,  like  Jesus.  Whatever  your  sin, 
whatever  your  weakness,  whatever  your  need. 


TWO  DINNERS  IN  SIMON’S  HOUSE  105 


Jesus  Christ,  the  divine  Man,  the  perfect  Friend, 
offers  Himself  to  you  to-day  as  your  Saviour 
and  your  Lord.  No  woman  ever  yet  regretted  giv¬ 
ing  her  trust  to  Jesus.  Bring  Him  here  and  now 
the  fragrant  alabaster  box  of  your  confidence  and 
love,  and  hear  His  sweet  words  of  blessing  ring¬ 
ing  in  your  ears  and  in  your  heart. 


VIII 


three  interesting  witnesses 

FOR  CHRIST 

“  One  thing  I  know ,  that ,  whereas  I  was  blind,  now 
I  see  ” — John  9:  25. 

“After  these  things  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  being 
a  disciple  of  Jesus,  but  secretly  for  fear  of  the  Jews, 
asked  of  Pilate  that  he  might  take  away  the  body  of 
Jesus.” — John  19:38. 

“And  there  came  also  Nicodemus,  he  who  at  first 
came  to  him  by  night,  bringing  a  mixture  of  myrrh 
and  aloes,  about,  a  hundred  pounds A — John  19:39. 

THE  first  of  these  three  witnesses  to  Christ 
was  a  man  who  was  born  blind  and  with 
parents  so  poor  that  he  had  to  beg  for  his 
daily  food.  And  yet  John,  who  wrote  a  very  con¬ 
densed  life  of  Jesus,  uses  only  four  verses  to  tell 
about  the  public  confession  of  Christ  by  Joseph 
and  Nicodemus,  and  uses  ten  times  that  number 
to  tell  about  the  healing  and  conversion  and  con¬ 
fession  of  the  poor  blind  beggar. 

Blindness  is  a  very  common  affliction  in  the 
East.  In  Europe  only  one  in  a  thousand  are  blind, 
but  in  Egypt  and  Palestine  one  in  a  hundred  are 

without  the  blessing  of  sight.  Of  the  six  miracles 

106 


THREE  INTERESTING-  WITNESSES  107 


connected  with  blindness  which  are  recorded  in 
the  Gospels,  this  is  the  only  case  described  as 
blindness  from  birth.  In  this  lies  its  special  char¬ 
acteristic,  for  the  blind  man  spoke  truthfully  when 
he  said  to  his  questioners,  “  Since  the  world  began 
it  was  never  heard  that  any  one  opened  the  eyes  of 
a  man  born  blind.” 

The  occasion  of  his  healing  came  about  as  Jesus 
was  passing  by  with  His  disciples.  As  the  group 
drew  near  to  the  blind  man’s  begging  stand,  one  of 
the  disciples  put  to  Jesus  the  question,  no  doubt 
pointing  the  Master’s  attention  to  the  blind  beggar, 
“  Rabbi,  who  sinned,  this  man  or  his  parents,  that 
he  should  be  bom  blind?”  Jesus  answered, 
“Neither  did  this  man  sin,  nor  his  parents:  but 
that  the  works  of  God  should  be  made  manifest 
in  him.  We  must  work  the  works  of  him  that 
sent  me,  while  it  is  day:  the  night  cometh,  when 
no  man  can  work.  When  I  am  in  the  world,  I  am 
the  light  of  the  world.”  And  then  Jesus  spat  on 
the  ground,  and  made  clay  of  the  spittle,  and 
anointed  the  eyes  of  the  blind  man,  and  told  him 
to  go  and  wash  in  the  pool  of  Siloam,  not  far 
away;  and  without  an  answer  back,  or  quibbling, 
or  delay,  he  went  immediately  and  washed,  and 
came  back  seeing. 

In  the  meantime  Christ  and  His  disciples  had 
gone  on.  The  beggar  seems  to  have  gone  home 


108  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


at  once,  we  can  well  imagine,  in  great  excitement 
and  delight.  His  neighbours  had  a  controversy 
about  the  matter.  Some  said:  “  This  is  our  neigh¬ 
bour’s  son,  that  used  to  sit  and  beg  by  the  side  of 
the  road.”  But  others  would  not  believe  it, 
though  they  admitted  he  looked  like  him;  but  he 
said:  “I  am  he.”  Then  they  asked  him,  “How 
were  thine  eyes  opened?  ”  And  he  said:  “  A  man 
that  is  called  Jesus  made  clay,  and  anointed  mine 
eyes,  and  said  unto  me.  Go  to  Siloam,  and  wash: 
so  I  went  away  and  washed,  and  I  received  sight.” 
Then  the  neighbours  wanted  to  know  where  Jesus 
was,  but  he  was  unable  to  tell  them. 

So  some  of  these  curious  busybody  neighbours 
took  him  in  hand  and  brought  him  to  the  Phari¬ 
sees.  They  at  once  brought  up  the  question  of  his 
being  healed  on  the  Sabbath  day,  and  when  in 
answer  to  their  questions  he  repeated  his  story  of 
his  healing,  instead  of  being  happy  over  him  and 
congratulating  him  on  the  wonderful  blessing  he 
had  received  in  his  sight,  they  said  to  him:  “  This 

t 

man  is  not  from  God,  because  he  keepeth  not  the 
Sabbath.”  But  others  standing  by  said:  “How 
can  a  man  that  is  a  sinner  do  such  signs?  ”  And 
they  were  divided  into  two  factions.  So  they 
turned  again  to  the  man  who  had  received  his  sight 
and  asked  what  he  thought  about  Christ:  “  What 
sayest  thou  of  him,  in  that  he  opened  thine  eyes?  ” 


THESE  INTERESTING  WITNESSES  109 


His  answer  was,  “  He  is  a  prophet.”  Then  they 
began  to  doubt  whether  he  had  ever  been  blind, 
and  they  called  his  parents  as  witnesses  and  asked: 
“  Is  this  your  son,  who  ye  say  was  born  blind  ?, 
how  then  doth  he  now  see  ?  ”  The  parents  an¬ 
swered,  “  We  know  that  this  is  our  son,  and  that 
he  was  born  blind:  but  how  he  now  seeth,  we 
know  not;  .  .  .  ask  him;  he  is  of  age;  he 

shall  speak  for  himself.” 

I  have  never  taken  much  stock  in  those  parents. 
They  were  cheap  and  cowardly.  They  knew  very 
well  that  their  son  told  the  truth  about  how  he 
received  his  sight,  but  they  lied  to  save  themselves 
from  being  cast  out  of  the  synagogue.  The  boy 
must  have  harked  back  to  a  nobler  grandfather  or 
grandmother,  for  he  was  of  better  stuff  than  his 
parents;  and  when  they  said  to  him  in  a  tone  of 
threatening,  “Give  glory  to  God:  we  know  that 
this  man  is  a  sinner,”  he  said,  “  Whether  he  is  a 
sinner,  I  know  not;  one  thing  I  know,  that, 
whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see.”  And  when  they 
tried  to  confuse  him  by  asking  him  over  again 
how  he  had  received  his  sight,  he  answered  them, 
“  I  told  you  even  now,  and  ye  did  not  hear ;  where¬ 
fore  would  ye  hear  it  again?  would  ye  also  become 
his  disciples?  ” 

Then  they  reviled  him  and  spoke  insultingly  to 
him.  “  Thou  art  his  disciple,”  they  said,  “  but  we 


110  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


are  disciples  of  Moses.  We  know  that  God  hath 
spoken  unto  Moses:  but  as  for  this  man,  we  know 
not  whence  he  is.” 

Then  the  real  metal  that  was  in  the  former  blind 
beggar  shines  forth.  He  answers,  “  Why,  herein 
is  the  marvel,  that  ye  know  not  whence  he  is,  and 
yet  he  opened  mine  eyes.  We  know  that  God 
heareth  not  sinners;  but  if  any  man  be  a  wor¬ 
shiper  of  God,  and  do  his  will,  him  he  heareth. 
Since  the  world  began  it  was  never  heard  that  any 
one  opened  the  eyes  of  a  man  born  blind.  If  this 
man  were  not  from  God,  he  could  do  nothing.” 

That  was  too  much  for  the  Pharisees.  They 
could  not  answer  him,  so  they  raged  at  him: 
“  Thou  wast  altogether  born  in  sins,  and  dost  thou 
teach  us  ?  ”  And  they  cast  him  out.  Poor  Phari¬ 
sees,  they  were  blinder  than  he.  John  Ruskin 
says:  “  The  greatest  thing  a  human  soul  ever  does 
in  this  world  is  to  see  something,  and  to  tell  what 
it  sees  in  a  plain  way.  Hundreds  of  people  can 
talk  to  one  who  can  think ;  but  thousands  can  think 
to  one  who  can  see.  To  see  clearly  is  poetry, 
prophecy  and  religion  all  in  one.”  To  one  who 
can  really  see, 

“  The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 

To  him  are  opening  Paradise.” 

When  Jesus  heard  that  the  Pharisees  had  cast 


THREE  INTERESTING  WITNESSES  111 


the  former  blind  beggar  out  of  the  synagogue,  He 
immediately  looked  him  up.  You  may  always  de¬ 
pend  upon  it  that  Jesus  will  more  than  make  up 
for  whatever  you  suffer  on  account  of  your  fidelity 
to  Him;  He  will  make  it  up  to  you  many  times 
over.  Paul  found  it  so,  and  could  exclaim  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  terrible  troubles  that  can  come 
to  man,  “  For  our  light  affliction,  which  is  for  the 
moment,  worketh  for  us  more  and  more  exceed¬ 
ingly  an  eternal  weight  of  glory.”  You  will  never 
lose  by  standing  faithfully  for  Christ.  Jesus 
looked  up  the  man  the  Pharisees  cast  out,  and 
when  He  found  him  He  said :  “  Dost  thou  be¬ 
lieve  on  the  Son  of  God?  ”  Ouick  as  a  flash  came 
back  his  reply:  “Who  is  he,  Lord,  that  I  may 
believe  on  him?  ”  Jesus  said  to  him,  “  Thou  hast 
both  seen  him,  and  he  it  is  that  speaketh  with 
thee.”  And  he  said,  “  Lord,  I  believe,”  and  right 
there  and  then  he  worshiped  Christ  as  the  Son  of 
God. 

This  blind  man,  healed  of  his  blindness  and  con¬ 
verted  from  his  sins,  was  a  wonderful  witness  for 
Christ.  He  never  lost  a  chance  to  speak  out.  He 
did  not  undertake  to  speculate  about  things  he 
knew  nothing  about;  but  the  things  Christ  had 
done  for  him  he  knew,  and  knew  better  than  any 
one  else.  They  were  solid  rock  under  his  feet, 
and  he  stood  there,  never  wavering  for  a  moment. 


112  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Oh,  friends,  if  you  have  given  your  heart  to  Christ 
and  He  has  forgiven  your  sins  and  given  you  the 
blessed  gladness  and  assurance  of  His  love  in  your 
heart,  you  have  the  credentials  in  your  own  soul 
that  you  are  a  Christian,  and  you  need  not  fear 
what  man  can  do  unto  you.  The  Pharisees  cast 
this  man  out,  but,  as  Mr.  Moody  used  to  chuckle 
and  say,  “  They  cast  him  right  into  the  arms  of  a 
loving  Saviour.”  They  had  no  power  to  separate 
him  from  Jesus.  And  man  has  no  power  to  do 
that  now.  Paul  says:  “  Who  shall  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  Christ?  shall  tribulation,  or  an¬ 
guish,  or  persecution,  or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or 
peril,  or  sword,  .  .  .  Nay,  in  all  these  things 

we  are  more  than  conquerors  through  him  that 
loved  us.  For  I  am  persuaded,  that  neither  death, 
nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  things 
present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor  powers,  nor 
height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature,  shall  be 
able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is 
in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.” 

Surely  this  healed  and  converted  blind  man  was 
a  first-class  witness  for  Jesus. 

Now  the  other  two  witnesses  I  wish  to  call  to 
your  attention  were  very  different  men.  They 
were  Jewish  gentlemen.  They  were  well  born, 
well  educated,  moral,  religious,  thoroughly  high- 
toned,  cultivated  men.  They  had  both  been  inter- 


THREE  INTERESTING  WITNESSES  113 


ested  in  Jesus  during  the  years  of  His  ministry. 
They  were  both  members  of  the  Sanhedrim.  We 
have  no  record  that  Joseph  of  Arimathea  ever 
had  any  personal  conversation  with  Jesus.  But 
we  do  have  a  record  that  he  once  stood  up  in  a 
meeting  of  the  Sanhedrim  and  defended  Jesus, 
and  we  know  from  John’s  statement  that  he  knew 
sufficiently  about  Christ  to  have  secretly  become 
His  disciple,  and  that  he  gave  his  vote  against  the 
condemnation  of  the  Saviour;  but  his  fear  of  pub¬ 
lic  sentiment  had  held  him  from  open  confession 
of  his  faith  in  and  love  for  Christ  until  after  He 
was  dead.  But  after  Christ  had  been  crucified, 
Joseph’s  conscience  smote  him  for  his  cowardice, 
and  he  determined  that  he  would  no  longer  cover 
up  his  affection  for  his  Lord,  but  would  let  all  the 
world  know  that  he  believed  on  Christ  as  the 
Messiah  and  Saviour  of  the  world.  So  he  hur¬ 
ried  away  to  Pilate  and  begged  the  body  of  Jesus 
that  he  might  bury  it  in  his  own  new  tomb. 

Nicodemus  had  had  still  more  knowledge  of 
Jesus  early  in  the  Saviour’s  ministry.  He  had 
become  greatly  interested  in  Christ’s  teaching  as 
well  as  in  His  miracles,  and  he  came  to  Jesus  by 
night  and  conversed  with  Plim  about  many  deep 
things  of  the  soul  and  concerning  man’s  relation  to 
God.  Some  of  the  greatest  truths  of  the  Gospel 
Christ  first  preached  to  Nicodemus.  It  was  to  him 


114  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Jesus  announced  the  great  doctrine  of  the  new 
birth,  saying,  “  Marvel  not  that  I  said  unto  thee. 
Ye  must  be  born  anew.  The  wind  bloweth  where 
it  will,  and  thou  hearest  the  voice  thereof,  but 
knowest  not  whence  it  cometh,  and  whither  it 
goeth:  so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit.” 

It  was  to  Nicodemus  that  Jesus  revealed  the 
method  of  salvation  by  faith,  saying,  “And  as 
Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even 
so  must  the  Son  of  man  be  lifted  up;  that  whoso¬ 
ever  believeth  may  in  him  have  eternal  life.” 

It  was  to  Nicodemus  in  that  same  wonderful 
conversation  that  Jesus  gave  utterance  to  the  mar¬ 
velous  love  of  God  in  the  atonement  for  sin 
through  Jesus  Christ  when  He  made  that  glorious 
utterance:  “For  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he 
gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  be¬ 
lieveth  on  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal 
life.” 

And  yet,  though  he  was  convinced  that  Jesus 
was  a  teacher  come  from  God,  he  did  not  openly 
come  out  as  His  disciple.  He  did  at  one  time  de¬ 
fend  Him  in  the  Council,  until  some  one  sneer- 
ingly  wanted  to  know  if  he  also  was  a  Galilean; 
but  at  that  he  subsided  into  silence.  But  when 
Jesus  died  on  the  cross,  he,  too,  was  shamed  out 
of  his  secret  discipleship  and  went  with  Joseph  to 
bury  Jesus. 


THREE  INTERESTING  WITNESSES  115 


He  brought  with  him  sweet  spices  and  all  the 
rich  gifts  of  love  which  he  had  failed  to  give  in 
Christ’s  lifetime.  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nico- 
demus,  rich,  cultivated,  powerful  men,  both  made 
most  open  confession  of  Jesus,  but  they  waited 
until  after  He  had  given  His  life  for  them  on  the 
shameful  and  cruel  cross  before  they  did  it.  We 
may  well  imagine  that  in  talking  together  about  it 
afterward,  one  would  say  to  the  other:  “  I  would 
to  God  that  you  and  I  had  given  our  all  to  Christ 
while  He  lived.  We  might  have  given  the  Saviour 
many  comforts,  and  the  weight  of  our  influence 
might  have  swung  the  minds  and  hearts  of  many 
others  to  His  side.”  But  they  did  make  confes¬ 
sion  of  their  faith,  and  right  royally  did  they  do 
it. 

Many  of  you  have  known  about  Jesus  all  your 
lives.  You  are  convinced  that  He  is  the  Saviour 
of  the  world.  And  yet  you  are  giving  Him  no 
open  confession.  He  died  on  the  cross  for  you  as 
truly  as  He  did  for  Joseph  or  Nicodemus.  He 
gave  Himself  as  a  ransom  for  your  soul.  You  are 
not  your  own.  You  have  been  brought  back  from 
evil  at  a  great  price,  even  the  precious  blood  of  the 
Son  of  God.  And  He  asks  of  you  that  you  shall 
accept  salvation  at  His  hand.  He  asks  that  you 
confess  Him  before  men.  He  tenderly,  lovingly, 
pleadingly,  is  saying  to  you,  “  Every  one  who  shall 


116  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


confess  me  before  men,  him  will  I  also  confess 
before  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven.,, 

Do  not,  I  plead  with  you,  sin  against  His  tender¬ 
ness  and  compassion  until  in  grieved  and  thwarted 
and  disappointed  love  He  will  be  compelled  to  say 
to  you:  “  But  whosoever  shall  deny  me  before  men, 
him  will  I  also  deny  before  my  Father  who  is  in 
heaven.” 

All  the  beauty  and  the  joy  of  the  Christian  life 
is  now  within  your  reach.  Seize  now  upon  all  the 
unsearchable  riches  of  salvation! 


IX 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  PETER 

“  He  saith  unto  him  the  third  time ,  Simon,  son  of 
John,  lovest  thou  me?  Peter  was  grieved  because 
he  said  unto  him  the  third  time,  Lovest  thou  me? 
And  he  said  unto  him,  Lord,  thou  knowest  all  things; 
thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee.  Jesus  saith  unto  him, 
Feed  my  sheep.” — John  21 : 17. 

IN  many  ways  this  restoration  of  Peter  is  the 
most  wonderful  of  all  the  Bible  conversions. 
No  one  had  known  Jesus  more  intimately 
than  Peter.  He  had  been  preeminently  the  leader 
in  the  apostolic  band.  It  was  Peter  who  had  first 
openly  declared  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God,  and  had  won  the  praise  of  the 
Master  for  his  spiritual  discernment. 

Peter  was  one  of  the  three  friends  of  Jesus  who 
made  up  the  inner  circle  among  those  twelve 
chosen  friends  of  Christ  whom  we  call  His  dis¬ 
ciples.  On  great  occasions  these  three  most  inti¬ 
mate  friends  were  always  with  their  Lord. 

When  Jesus  went  up  on  the  mountain  to  meet 
Moses  and  Elijah,  to  talk  with  those  mighty  serv¬ 
ants  of  God  concerning  His  atoning  sacrifice  on 
the  cross,  and  was  transfigured  before  them,  He 

took  with  Him  Peter,  James,  and  John.  And 

117 


118  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


after  the  last  communion,  when  the  Lord  went  out 
into  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane  to  His  hour  of 
unspeakable  agony,  it  was  Peter,  James,  and  John 
whom  the  Master  took  with  Him  as  friends  upon 
whom  His  soul  would  lean  in  that  hour  of  trial. 
It  was  Peter  who  had  declared  that  though  all  men 
should  forsake  Christ,  he  would  remain  faithful; 
yet  when  the  trial  came  and  he  had  followed  Jesus, 
after  His  arrest,  into  the  High  Priest’s  yard,  and 
was  warming  his  cold  hands  at  the  enemies’  fire,  it 
was  Peter  who  allowed  the  taunt  of  a  servant  girl 
to  turn  him  into  a  coward,  and  he  profanely  and 
bitterly  denied  his  Lord. 

How  vividly  the  picture  stands  out.  Judas  has 
betrayed  his  Lord  with  a  kiss,  with  the  shameful 
thirty  pieces  of  silver  in  his  pocket  Peter,  brave 
at  first,  drew  his  sword  and  stained  it  with  blood 
in  Christ’s  defense;  but  when  rebuked  for  his 
action,  he  seems  to  have  lost  all  hope  and  courage ; 
and,  when  questioned  later  in  the  Lord’s  very 
presence,  denied  that  he  even  knew  Him.  And 
then  the  cock  crowed,  and  he  caught  the  tender, 
sad  look  of  Christ,  and  it  broke  his  heart.  He 
went  out  and  wept  bitterly. 

It  must  have  been  a  sad  and  awful  time  for 
Peter  from  then  until  Easter  morning.  On  Easter 
day  a  ray  of  sunlight  shot  through  the  darkness  of 
Peter’s  gloom.  For  on  that  first  Easter  morning, 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  PETER  119 


when  the  Marys  came  and  found  the  empty  tomb, 
Jesus  appeared  to  them  and  told  them  to  go  and 
tell  His  disciples  “  and  Peter  ”  of  His  resurrection. 
That  Christ  should  especially  have  mentioned  him 
in  that  way,  as  one  to  receive  personal  messages 
from  the  Lord,  must  have  been  healing  balm  to 
his  sore  heart. 

But  peace  did  not  come  until  the  morning 
following  the  night  when  they  had  fished  all 
night  and  caught  nothing,  and  Jesus  •  appeared 
in  the  dawn  walking  on  the  beach.  And  the  Lord 
called  to  them,  “  Children,  have  ye  aught  to  eat  ?  ” 
And  they  answered  Him,  “  No.”  And  He  directed 
them  to  cast  their  net  on  the  right  side  of  the  boat, 
and  the  catch  was  so  great  they  could  not  draw 
it  in.  Then  it  was  John  who  said  to  Peter,  “  It  is 
the  Lord  ” ;  and  Peter’s  poor,  sore  bleeding  heart 
leaped  with  hope.  He  said  to  himself,  “  This  is 
my  chance  to  have  a  word  with  Jesus,  and  tell 
Him  how  I  repent  of  my  sin.”  And  immediately 
he  girt  his  fisher’s  coat  about  him  and  plunged 
into  the  water  and  swam  for  Jesus.  And  at  Jesus’ 
feet  Peter  told  his  story  of  confession,  poured  out 
his  heart  to  his  loving  Master.  Then  they  brought 
in  the  fish,  and  Peter  counted  them  and  found  there 
were  one  hundred  and  fifty-three.  Peter  was  a 
good  fisherman.  Then  Jesus  is  host,  and  cooks 
the  fish  and  serves  them,  and  when  they  have 


120  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


eaten  together,  Christ  makes  Peter’s  restoration 
certain  to  the  minds  and  knowledge  of  the  other 
disciples.  Suddenly  turning  to  Peter  as  they  re¬ 
clined  about  their  open-air  camp  breakfast  table, 
Jesus  says  to  Peter:  “  Simon,  son  of  John,  lovest 
thou  me  more  than  these?  ”  And  Peter  answers: 
“  Yea,  Lord,  thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee.”  Jesus 
said,  “  Feed  my  lambs.”  And  then  a  second  time 
He  said  to  Peter:  “Simon,  son  of  John,  lovest 
thou  me?  ”  and  Peter  answers  again,  “  Yea,  Lord, 
thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee.”  And  Jesus  says, 
“  Tend  my  sheep.”  And  then  for  the  third  time 
Jesus  says  to  Peter,  “  Simon,  son  of  John,  lovest 
thou  me  ?  ”  Peter  was  grieved  at  the  third  repeti¬ 
tion  of  the  question,  and  in  sorrow  he  exclaims, 
“  Lord,  thou  knowest  all  things ;  thou  knowest  that 
I  love  thee.”  You  will  notice  how  different  this 
reply  of  Peter’s  is  to  the  time  when  he,  with  so 
much  self-confident  bravado,  declared,  “  Though 
all  men  forsake  thee,  I  will  be  faithful.”  Then  he 
was  trusting  in  himself,  but  now  he  appeals  to 
Christ’s  knowledge  of  his  heart,  and  his  reliance, 
not  on  himself,  but  on  the  Lord.  And  so  Peter’s 
backsliding  was  healed  and  he  was  restored  to  his 
fellowship  with  God  and  Christ  and  to  his  place  of 
leadership  in  the  apostolic  band. 

This  wonderful  restoration  of  Peter  has  gone 
into  the  literature  and  art  of  the  Church  and  of 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  PETER  121 


the  world.  One  of  the  most  interesting  stories 
connected  with  it  that  has  ever  come  to  my  knowl¬ 
edge  was  told  recently  by  Miss  Genevieve  Cowles 
in  the  November  and  December  numbers  of  Mc¬ 
Clure's  Magazine  for  1922. 

Miss  Cowles  and  her  twin  sister,  who  was  also 
an  artist,  were  given  a  commission  to  paint  six 
altar  panels  in  a  chapel  of  Christ  Church,  New 
Haven,  Connecticut.  One  of  these  panels  was  to 
illustrate  the  cry  for  release  from  bondage.  The 
subject  given  for  this  panel  was  from  the  prayer, 
“  O  key  of  David  and  Scepter  of  the  House  of 
Israel,  thou  that  openest  and  no  man  shutteth, 
and  shuttest  and  no  man  openeth,  come  and  loose 
the  prisoner  from  the  prison  house,  and  him  that 
sitteth  in  darkness  from  the  shadow  of  death.” 

To  really  illustrate  this  prayer,  Miss  Cowles  felt 
that  she  must  visit  a  prison  and  saturate  her  soul 
with  the  prison  atmosphere,  absorb  the  prison 
spirit,  and  see  how  a  prisoner  looked. 

It  was  during  these  investigations  that  she  came 
to  feel  an  indescribable  longing  to  be  of  some  real 
Christlike  help  to  prisoners.  The  prison  face,  the 
awful  prison  look,  got  on  her  nerves  and  pervaded 
her  soul  with  deep  desire  to  help,  until  at  last  she 
and  her  sister  began  daily  to  pray  together:  “  Oh, 
God!  Is  there  no  way  to  bring  back  the  light  to 
those  faces?  God!  Show  the  way.”  At  last  it 


122  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


resolved  back  to  the  personal  equation,  as  any 
great  longing  or  vision  of  the  soul  does,  and  they 
began  to  cry:  “  What  can  we  do  to  help  the  pris¬ 
oners?  ” 

Now,  these  sisters  were  very  poor;  they  had  no 
money  save  what  they  earned  by  hard  work;  but 
they  loved  God  and  Christ  and  their  fellow  men 
and  wanted  to  cure  some  of  the  heartache  they 
had  seen  in  the  faces  of  prisoners.  So,  finally, 
Miss  Cowles  said  to  the  warden  at  the  prison  at 
Wethersfield,  Connecticut,  timidly:  “If  we,  my 
sister  and  I,  should  do  anything  beautiful  for  the 
prison,  would  you  accept  it?  Because  before  this 
we  have  asked  hard  things  by  faith,  and  the  faith 
has  been  answered.” 

The  warden  replied:  “I  want  a  great  painting 
to  be  placed  on  that  blank  wall,”  pointing  to  the 
farther  end  of  the  prison  chapel,  a  space  probably 
twenty-five  feet  by  forty,  “  to  stand  for  courage 
and  hope.  When  a  man  here  loses  courage  and 
hope  he  goes  mad.”  And  then  he  urged  these 
sisters  to  paint  that  picture.  Their  chance  had 
come. 

While  debating  over  the  theme  to  be  used  in 
tire  picture,  a  strange  happening  decided  it.  Miss 
Genevieve  Cowles  had  done  a  deliberate  act  of 
wrong.  She  awakened  in  the  night  and  began  to 
cry  with  conviction  of  sin;  her  sister,  Maude 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  PETER  123 


Cowles,  was  with  her.  She  knew  her  sister  was 
crying  because  she  had  done  wrong.  Her  sym¬ 
pathy  with  her  sister’s  grief  made  her  remember 
the  problem  about  the  picture  for  the  prisoners 
and,  trying  to  comfort  her,  she  cried  out:  “  Oh,  I 
know  what  it  is ! — The  message  for  the  prisoners. 
It  is  what  the  Lord  said  to  Peter,  ‘  Feed  my 
sheep.’  ”  And  in  a  moment  it  came  to  Miss  Gene¬ 
vieve  Cowles  like  a  vision,  the  unutterable  beauty 
of  that  scene  of  the  after-resurrection  days,  when 
the  Lord  came  back  and  spoke  to  penitent  Peter. 

And  again  and  again  it  kept  coming  to  her,  until 
it  was  decided.  They  were  twins;  they  did  every¬ 
thing  together.  It  was  agreed  that  Miss  Genevieve 
would  paint  the  Lord  and  Peter,  and  Miss  Maude, 
St.  John  and  the  background.  The  other  figures 
would  be  divided  between  them,  and  the  painting, 
as  a  whole,  would  be  called  “  The  Charge  of  St. 
Peter.”  It  was  to  be  a  silent  sermon  of  hope  and 
courage. 

But  it  was  to  cost  a  lot  of  money,  for  it  would 
be  a  work  of  years.  Where  would  the  money 
come  from?  They  talked  with  some  friends  as 
poor  as  themselves,  and  then  with  God,  and  then  a 
letter  came  from  a  woman  they  had  never  heard 
of,  enclosing  twenty-five  dollars.  A  blind  girl  gave 
thirty-five  dollars  for  the  picture  she  could  never 
see.  It  went  slowly.  Then  Miss  Maude  died.  I 


124  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


have  not  time  to  tell  of  the  long  struggle.  One  by 
one  people  became  interested.  Finally  she  had  two 
thousand  dollars  in  her  fund,  and  was  persuaded 
to  take  this  and  go  to  the  Holy  Land,  where  she 
could  get  the  true  atmosphere  and  perspective 
from  which  to  paint  her  great  picture.  She  spent 
two  years  in  the  Holy  Land,  sustained  by  friends, 
known  and  unknown,  who  sent  voluntary  gifts. 
Once  the  officials  and  the  prisoners  of  the  Con¬ 
necticut  State  Prison  united  in  a  subscription  for 
“  The  Charge  of  St.  Peter.” 

Then  she  came  back  to  America  and  painted 
her  silent  sermon  of  courage  and  hope.  In  all, 
she  worked  seven  years.  It  was  a  marvelous  la¬ 
bour  of  love,  and  if  you  are  ever  in  Hartford  you 
will  be  deeply  moved  if  you  go  out  to  the  Wethers¬ 
field  Prison  and  ask  to  see  the  great  painting,  “  The 
Charge  of  St.  Peter”  at  the  end  of  the  prison 
chapel. 

But  the  most  wonderful  thing  about  this  won¬ 
derful  story  is  the  influence  of  these  years  of 
Christlike  service  by  this  good  woman  on  some  of 
the  prisoners.  Take  just  one.  A  young  boy,  six¬ 
teen,  went  out  to  target  practice  with  a  comrade, 
twelve  years  ago.  They  got  a  bottle  of  liquor  and 
got  drunk  and  quarreled,  and  one  shot  the  other 
and  killed  him.  He  ran  away,  was  caught  after 
two  years,  and  was  sentenced  for  life.  He  has 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  PETER  125 


been  in  that  prison  now  ten  years.  Under  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  Miss  Cowles’  work  he,  too,  began  to 
paint,  and  through  her  Christlike  spirit  and  the 
influence  of  her  great  painting,  has  himself  painted 
the  three  crosses  on  Calvary.  He  has  not  great 
ability  as  a  painter,  but  he  has  found  a  great 
Saviour  on  the  middle  cross,  one  able  to  save  unto 
the  uttermost,  who  has  filled  his  soul  with  hope 
and  courage.  And  I  do  not  envy  any  one  who 
can  read  with  a  cold  heart  or  dry  eyes  those  won¬ 
derful  articles  of  Genevieve  Cowles,  telling  of  the 
way  God  has  used  her  pictures  and  her  Christian 
efforts  to  bring  the  Christ,  who  restored  Peter,  to 
these  poor  prisoners.  It  has  been  sunlight  from 
Calvary  and  from  Easter  morning  into  many  dark¬ 
ened  hearts. 

Peter  did  not  look  as  though  he  was  worth  sav¬ 
ing  that  night  when  he  bitterly  denied  his  Lord; 
but  Jesus  saw  something  in  him  that  was  worth 
while,  and  by  restoring  Peter,  made  all  the  glory 
of  Pentecost  possible. 

Some  of  you  may  be  in  Peter’s  condition.  You 
have  sinned,  as  Peter  did,  against  the  tender 
friendship  and  loving  kindness  of  your  Lord,  and 
by  your  worldliness  and  your  cowardice,  in  the 
stress  of  opposition  to  your  Saviour,  you  have  de¬ 
nied  Him  and  brought  grief  and  disappointment 
to  His  loving  heart.  But  if,  like  Peter,  you  re- 


126  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


pent  of  your  sin  and  turn  again  unto  Him — He 
who  forgave  Peter  and  restored  him  not  only  to 
His  love,  but  to  His  confidence,  and  who  honoured 
him  with  still  greater  trusts,  and  blessed  his  ef¬ 
forts  beyond  all  his  dreams,  will  forgive  you,  and 
honour  you,  and  bless  you  with  the  great  and 
wonderful  joy  of  winning  other  souls  to  your 
Lord.  Let  Him  now  restore  you  to  your  place  in 
His  heart  and  in  the  work  of  bringing  blessings 
unmeasured  to  your  fellow  men.  How  little  Peter 
dreamed  of  Pentecost  at  the  lake's  edge  that  morn¬ 
ing  when  Jesus  said:  “  Feed  my  sheep.”  So  you 
cannot  imagine  the  glorious  achievements  Christ 
has  in  His  heart  for  you,  if  you  let  Him  heal  you 
of  your  backsliding  and  restore  unto  you  the  full¬ 
ness  of  His  love  and  grace. 

Like  Peter,  you  denied  your  Lord.  Now,  like 
Peter,  come  back  to  Christ  and  be  saved.  When 
John  whispered  to  Peter,  “  It  is  the  Lord,”  Peter, 
deep  down  in  his  soul,  said,  “  This  is  my  chance,” 
and  plunged  out  into  the  lake  and  swam  for  Jesus. 
And  he  found  Him  and  found  his  restoration. 
He  found  Pentecost  and  all  his  glorious  life  as 
a  soul-winner  there  at  the  feet  of  Jesus.  Oh,  back¬ 
slider,  away  from  Cod!  This  is  your  chance. 
Jesus  is  near.  Swim  for  Him  now.  He  will  meet 
you  as  tenderly  as  He  did  Peter,  and  you,  too,  will 
find  restoration  and  heaven  at  His  dear  feet. 


X 


THE  OPEN  SECRETS  OF  PENTECOST 

“  And  when  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  now  come, 
they  were  all  together  in  one  place.” — Acts  2 :  1. 

“And  they  were  all  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  began  to  speak.” — Acts  2 :  4. 

“Now  when  they  heard  this,  they  were  pricked  in 
their  heart,  and  said  unto  Peter  and  the  rest  of  the 
apostles,  Brethren,  what  shall  we  dof  And  Peter 
said  unto  them,  Repent  ye,  and  be  baptized  every  one 
of  you  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  unto  the  remis¬ 
sion. of  your  sins;  and  ye  shall  receive  the  gift  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.” — Acts  2 :  37-38. 

^HE  first  secret  of  Pentecost  may  be  found 
P  in  that  one  word  “together,”  coupled 
with  the  phrase  “  in  one  place.”  The 
Bible  declares  that  one  good  man  filled  with 
the  conscious  presence  of  God  can  whip  a  thou¬ 
sand  ordinary  men  who  are  opposed  to  him,  but 
that  two  such  men  working  together  can  “  put  ten 
thousand  to  flight.”  Frances  Willard  used  to  say 
that  that  word  “  together  ”  was  the  sweetest  word 
in  any  language.  Certain  it  is  that  a  group  of 
good  people,  working  to  promote  a  noble  cause, 

multiply  their  power  amazingly  when  they  come 

127 


128  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


together  in  spirit  and  in  unity  of  purpose.  Noth¬ 
ing  weakens  the  Christian  Church  so  much  as  to 
be  broken  into  factions,  so  that  they  do  not  pull 
together  for  the  Lord’s  work.  Neither  wealth, 
nor  culture,  nor  numbers,  however  desirable,  can 
take  the  place  of  oneness  of  spirit  and  devotion  to 
the  great  mission  of  the  Church,  which  is  to  win 
men  and  women  to  Christ.  The  resurrection  of 
Christ  and  His  occasional  meetings  with  them 
afterward,  and  His  parting  from  them  on  Mount 
Olivet,  and  His  assurance  that  if  they  tarried  at 
Jerusalem  the  Holy  Spirit  would  come  upon  them, 
had  brought  the  disciples  into  very  close  fellow¬ 
ship.  They  had  elected  a  successor  to  Judas,  and 
had  filled  up  their  ranks  and  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  and  had  drawn  together,  not  only  in 
spirit  and  purpose,  but  came  daily  into  close  touch, 
physically,  in  one  place,  so  that  they  should  feel 
the  added  power  of  each  other’s  presence  and 
faith.  When  we  would  kindle  a  great  fire  for 
Christ  among  men,  we,  too,  must  bring  all  our 
burning  souls  together  in  one  place,  that  our  spiri¬ 
tual  fire  may  kindle  upon  one  another  and  flame 
aloft  as  a  witness  to  our  Lord.  The  psychology 
of  Christian  power  is  the  same  now  as  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost,  and  if  we  would  attract  the 
multitude  to  Jesus,  we  must  bind  our  forces  to¬ 
gether. 


THE  OPEN  SECRETS  OF  PENTECOST  129 


The  second  secret  of  Pentecost  is  in  the  coming 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the  disciples,  banishing 
their  fears  and  turning  weak  and  timid  men  and 
women  into  valiant  heroes  and  heroines  who  were 
dauntless  in  the  face  of  opposition  and  peril  of 
any  kind. 

Fear  is  man’s  greatest  enemy.  No  man  is  de¬ 
feated  so  long  as  he  is  unafraid.  Science  has  long 
searched  for  some  drug  powerful  enough  to  banish 
physical  fear. 

A  wonderful  discovery  has  recently  been  made 
of  a  shrub  or  vine  known  as  the  “  Courage 
Flower.”  For  many  years  the  medical  profession 
has  heard  of  Caapi,  but  only  vaguely.  Baron 
Humboldt,  the  German  explorer  of  the  last  cen¬ 
tury,  heard  the  natives  of  Brazil  speak  of  a  strange 
potion  which  made  the  savages  of  the  South  Amer¬ 
ican  hinterland  reckless  in  battle.  A  later  ex¬ 
plorer,  Richard  Bruce,  saw  the  vine,  with  vivid 
red  blossoms,  which  his  native  guide  called  the 
“  Courage  Flower.”  Weiss,  another  famous  ex¬ 
plorer,  witnessed  an  Indian  change  from  a  craven 
to  a  Hector  after  drinking  a  cup  of  liquid  brewed 
from  the  vine  of  the  Caapi.  Such  stories  from 
South  America  seemed  to  men  of  science  like  fairy 
tales,  but  as  they  persisted,  and  the  need  of 
science  for  some  means  to  rid  man  of  fear  was 
very  great,  the  scientific  men  kept  saying,  “If 


130  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


some  way  could  be  found  to  deaden  the  tortured 
mind  during  an  operation,  as  parts  of  the  body 
are  deadened  by  the  injection  of  anaesthesia,  and 
if  this  could  be  done  without  the  use  of  ether  or 
chloroform — dangerous  to  the  heart  action — mil¬ 
lions  of  lives  might  be  saved.” 

So,  a  while  ago,  Dr.  H.  H.  Rusby,  President  of 
the  College  of  Pharmacy  of  Columbia  University, 
decided  to  obtain  a  sample  of  this  wonderful  vine. 
So  the  expedition  was  sent  out,  at  an  expense  of 

/S'*-.  fcV.V» 

many  thousands  of  dollars,  into  the  unexplored 
hinterland  of  South  America.  It  is  a  wonder 
land.  Great  serpents  still  glide  through  the  for¬ 
ests.  Strange  mammals  roam  the  jungles.  Beau¬ 
tiful  ferns  tower  to  extraordinary  heights.  Exotic 
flowers  burst  into  blossom.  It  is  the  home  of  the 
boa  constrictor,  and  anaconda,  the  tapir,  the  bird 
of  paradise,  the  orchid,  and  the  long-sought-for 
Caapi, — The  Courage  Flower. 

After  almost  intolerable  hardships,  the  expedi¬ 
tion  found  the  object  of  its  quest.  Its  leader  saw 
the  juice  of  the  Caapi  vine  in  action  on  the  savage 
natives,  and  after  struggles  that  cost  the  lives  of 
several  men,  after  paddling  many  miles  up  strange 
rivers,  and  crossing  almost  impenetrable  forests, 
fighting  fevers  and  beasts  and  reptiles  and  the 
points  of  poisoned  arrows,  he  wrenched  from  the 
savage  wilderness  a  few  pounds  of  the  roots  of 


THE  OPEN  SECRETS  OF  PENTECOST  131 


the  Caapi  vine,  the  juice  of  which,  given  a  man 
before  an  operation,  will  make  him  laugh  at  death, 
or  given  an  expectant  mother,  may  take  her  pain¬ 
lessly  through  childbirth — the  wonderful  drug  that 
kills  fear.  In  the  realm  of  man’s  physical  com¬ 
fort  and  life  that  is  a  very  wonderful  discovery. 
It  may  easily  prove  to  be  the  most  wonderful  since 
the  discovery  of  anaesthesia. 

But  it  was  a  far  more  wonderful  discovery  of 
the  power  and  love  and  mercy  of  God  in  the  ban¬ 
ishment  of  fear  in  the  higher  realm  of  the  soul 
when  the  Holy  Spirit  came  upon  the  disciples  of 
Jesus  in  that  upper  room  at  Jerusalem.  This  di¬ 
vine  Caapi,  the  courage  flower  of  the  soul,  worked 
differently  from  that  of  this  magic  South  Ameri¬ 
can  drug.  It  did  not  banish  fear  by  deadening 
the  mind  to  danger,  but  by  opening  the  eyes  of 
the  soul  to  the  realities  of  the  spiritual  world  and 
quickening  the  soul  consciousness  to  realize  the 
infinitely  greater  importance  and  value  of  spiritual 
things  as  compared  with  the  physical  life. 

The  story  of  Pentecost  is  preeminently  the  story 
of  this  divine  Caapi,  this  divine  Courage  Flower, 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  You  remember  how  timid 
and  cowardly  the  disciples  had  been.  When  Jesus 
was  arrested,  they  all  forsook  Him  and  fled.  That 
does  not  mean  that  they  willfully  deserted  their 
Lord,  as  did  Judas,  who  betrayed  Him;  but  only 


132  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


that  they  were  thrown  into  panic  by  their  fears, 
and  ran  away.  They  were  like  green  volunteer 
soldiers,  whose  patriotism  cannot  be  doubted,  but 
who  cannot  hold  their  nerves  steady  under  fire. 
So  it  was  with  these  disciples  of  Jesus.  These 
fishermen  and  peasants  were  strangers  to  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  the  city,  and  when  the  stern  Roman 
soldiers  came  upon  them  with  torches  and  swords 
and  spears  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  and  led 
away  their  Lord  a  prisoner,  even  the  stalwart  and 
self-reliant  Peter  became  a  craven,  and  wickedly 
denied  his  Master. 

Now  these  are  the  same  men,  only  a  few  weeks 
later,  with  over  a  hundred  others  like  them;  men 
and  women  who  had  known  Jesus,  who  had  re¬ 
ceived  mercies  at  His  hands,  whose  souls  had  been 
illuminated  by  the  light  of  His  face,  but  with  the 
same  possibilities  of  fear  and  panic  in  their  natures. 
But  when  the  Ploly  Spirit  came  upon  them,  and 
they  were  quickened  and  aroused  to  the  realities  of 
the  spiritual  world,  all  fear  was  banished,  and  the 
Divine  Caapi  lifted  them  above  all  fear  of  what 
their  enemies  could  do  to  them.  They  feared  no 
longer  the  face  of  man.  They  feared  nothing  but 
to  sin  against  God.  Neither  wild  beasts,  nor 
wicked  men,  nor  martyrdom,  could  turn  them  from 
their  course.  Fear  was  gone.  That  is  the  first 
great  secret  of  Pentecost.  The  consciousness  of 


THE  OPEN  SECRETS  OF  PENTECOST  133 

the  divine  love  so  brought  into  power  in  the 
soul  by  the  Holy  Spirit  that  it  entirely  casts  out 
fear. 

But  the  Holy  Spirit  does  more  than  banish  fear 
from  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  speaker — it  adds 
unction  and  spiritual  magnetism,  which  words  can¬ 
not  describe,  to  the  presence  and  voice  and  words 
of  the  speaker.  It  took  a  great  blundering  fisher¬ 
man  like  Peter,  who  never  dreamed  of  being  an 
orator,  and  made  him  an  evangelist  of  transcend¬ 
ent  power  over  great  masses  of  men.  It  took  a 
hundred  and  twenty  peasant  people,  who  had  been 
timid  and  backward,  and  charged  their  stammer¬ 
ing  speech  and  even  their  tears  with  an  electric 
force  that  no  one  could  withstand.  It  drew  the 
crowd  to  Pentecost  as  nothing  else  could  have 
done.  It  still  draws  wherever  it  appears.  Wher¬ 
ever,  anywhere,  in  country  or  city,  a  company  of 
earnest  people  are  on  fire  with  the  presence  of  the 
Holy  Spirit — there  the  crowd  will  come  to  see 
them  consumed  by  the  holy  flames.  Let  the  word 
go  forth  from  any  church  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
present  with  great  power,  that  sinners  are  being 
convicted  of  sin,  that  repenting  souls  are  being 
converted,  and  the  multitude  will  flock  thither. 
Nothing  is  so  interesting  as  life;  and  the  higher 
the  type  of  life,  the  more  interesting  it  is.  There 
is  no  life  so  interesting  as  the  life  of  the  Spirit  of 


134  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 

God  working  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  men  and 
women. 

The  third  secret  of  Pentecost  is  the  personal 
ministry  carried  on  by  the  individual  Christians 
in  the  crowd.  It  was  not  only  Peter  and  the 
apostles  who  were  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  but 
every  one  of  the  company  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty  Christians  were  so  conscious  of  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  God  in  their  souls  that  each  one  of  them 
became  a  preacher  of  righteousness  and  a  personal 
witness  to  the  power  of  Christ  to  forgive  sins. 
There  must  have  been  some  wonderful  testimonies 
there  that  day.  Think  who  were  there:  Mary, 
the  mother  of  Jesus,  was  in  that  crowd  bearing 
witness  to  her  divine  Son.  Think  what  a  testi¬ 
mony  she  had  to  bear.  What  a  mothers’  meeting 
Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  could  lead,  and  how 
she  could  persuade  them  to  believe  on  her  Son! 
Mary  Magdalene  also  was  there.  She  had  an 
Easter  story  that  would  convince  any  woman  with 
an  open  mind  that  Christ  had  power  to  burst 
asunder  the  bonds  of  death  and  the  grave.  And 
that  poor  sinful  woman  of  the  street,  who  went 
uninvited  into  the  house  of  Simon  the  leper  and 
washed  Christ’s  feet  with  her  tears  and  wiped 
them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head  and  won  the  for¬ 
giveness  of  all  her  many  sins,  had  a  message  for 


THE  OPEN  SECRETS  OF  PENTECOST  135 


many  a  sad-hearted  woman  in  that  multitude. 
And  old  Bartimaeus,  who  had  once  been  blind,  but 
now  could  see.  What  a  tale  of  Christ’s  consider¬ 
ation  and  mercy  he  had  to  tell!  And  Zacchaeus 
had  a  tale  for  publicans  and  tax-gatherers,  of  a 
night  session  in  his  own  home  in  Jericho,  that 
would  melt  the  hearts  of  other  men  in  like  position. 
It  may  be  the  man  of  Gadara  and  his  wife  were 
there  to  bear  testimony  to  their  home,  once  broken 
by  sin,  but  now  remade  in  peace  and  joy.  And  so 
on  through  that  great  crowd  you  could  search  out 
a  hundred  and  twenty  preachers,  each  one  with  his 
or  her  own  individual  story  of  Christ’s  forgiving 
love  to  tell  to  his  neighbour,  in  that  vast  throng, 
where  the  one  question  on  every  one’s  lips  was, 
“  What  can  I  do  to  be  saved?  ” 

And  the  one  answer  everywhere  given,  from 
Peter  to  Mary  Magdalene,  or  Lazarus  whom  He 
raised  from  the  dead,  or  the  leper  who  had  been 
cleansed,  or  the  man  who  had  carried  home  his 
bed  after  Jesus  healed  him,  was,  “  Repent  ye,  and 
be  baptized  every  one  of  you  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  unto  the  remission  of  your  sins.”  To  re¬ 
pent  is  to  quit  your  sin  and  turn  from  it.  And  if  a 
man  repent  and  turn  from  his  sins,  Christ  is  will¬ 
ing  and  able  to  forgive  him  and  cleanse  him  from 
all  sin  and  unrighteousness.  Pentecost  can  come 
only  by  clear-cut,  genuine  turning  away  from  sin 


136  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


to  Christ.  No  man  or  set  of  men  can  get  up  or 
work  up  a  Pentecost.  It  takes  a  band  of  faithful 
Christian  men  and  women  pointing  sinners  to 
Christ,  and  an  honest  forsaking  of  sin  on  the  part 
of  the  sinner  who  hears  the  message,  to  bring 
about  Pentecost. 

What  are  all  the  requisites  for  Pentecost? 

First,  a  company  of  Christian  men  and  women, 
together,  in  one  place,  seeking  to  bear  testimony 
to  our  Lord  and  call  the  attention  of  those  who 
do  not  know  Him  to  His  power  and  willingness  to 
save. 

Second,  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  His 
presence  in  our  hearts  takes  away  the  timidity  and 
fear  that  sometimes  locks  our  lips  in  silence.  We 
can  bear  glad  testimony  to  the  fact  that  when  we 
were  far  from  Him  in  sin,  He  sought  us  out,  and 
forgave  us,  and  took  us  out  of  the  miry  clay  and 
set  our  feet  upon  a  rock. 

But  Peter  might  have  preached  his  fiery  mes¬ 
sage;  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  Christian  men 
and  women,  led  by  John,  and  Zacchseus,  and  Barti- 
maeus,  and  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus,  might  have 
gone  among  the  multitude  telling  their  personal  ex¬ 
perience  with  the  Lord  with  tongues  all  aflame 
with  the  unction  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  and  the  Pen¬ 
tecost  of  salvation  would  have  failed  if  the  men 
and  women  in  the  crowd  whose  hearts  were 


THE  OPEN  SECRETS  OF  PENTECOST  137 


pricked  into  conviction  of  sin  had  refused  to  yield 
to  the  call  from  heaven.  After  all,  it  was  the 
yielding,  repenting  sinner  that  made  Pentecost 
possible.  My  friend,  you  who  are  away  from 
God,  who  are  conscious  in  your  conscience  that 
you  are  a  sinner  against  divine  love  and  grace,  it 
is  at  last  put  up  to  the  door  of  your  heart.  You 
have  heard  the  message  of  the  Gospel.  You  are 
convinced  that  you  are  in  the  wrong.  You  are 
persuaded  that  Christ  is  the  divine  Saviour  of  the 
world.  You  have  proved  again  and  again  that 
you  cannot  save  yourself.  Again  and  again  you 
have  determined  to  break  the  chains  of  evil  habit, 
and  have  failed.  You  do  believe  that  Jesus  Christ 
has  saved  other  men  and  women  from  sin,  and 
that  He  has  power  to  save  you.  You  are  con¬ 
vinced  that  He  is  not  only  able  to  save  you,  but 
that  He  is  willing  to  save  you.  There  is  only  one 
thing  lacking,  then,  to  complete  Pentecost.  The 
friends  of  Jesus  are  fully  united  in  their  spirit  and 
purpose.  They  have  united  their  prayers  and  their 
loving  devotion.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  here.  We 
have  felt  Him  in  our  hearts.  He  has  touched  our 
lips  with  the  live  coal  of  His  presence.  He  has 
been  felt  by  some  of  you  in  your  hearts  and  con¬ 
sciences.  Will  you  complete  Pentecost? 

You  have  heard  the  divine  message.  You  have 
been  pricked  in  your  hearts.  You  have  been  con- 


138  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


victed  of  your  sin.  Will  you  yield?  It  was  the 
yielding  men  and  women  who  crowded  about 
Peter  and  his  comrades  and  said,  “  Brethren,  what 
shall  we  do?  ”  who  made  Pentecost  possible.  Now 
is  the  day  of  salvation.  The  conditions  have  not 
changed  since  Peter’s  day.  Christ  is  still  the  only 
Name  given  under  heaven  or  among  men  whereby 
we  can  be  saved.  Repent  of  your  sin,  and  make 
open  confession  of  your  faith  in  Christ,  and  you 
shall  receive  the  remission  of  your  sins  and  enter 
into  the  gates  of  the  new  life. 


XI 


MERCY  AND  HEALING  AT  THE 
BEAUTIFUL  GATE 

“Peter,  fastening  his  eyes  upon  him,  with  John, 
said,  Look  on  us.  And  he  gave  heed  unto  them, 
expecting  to  receive  something  from  them.  But 
Peter  said,  Silver  and  gold  have  I  none;  but  what  I 
have,  that  give  I  thee.  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ 
of  Nazareth,  walk.  And  he  took  him  by  the  right 
hand,  and  raised  him  up:  and  immediately  his  feet 
and  his  ankle-bones  received  strength.  And  leaping 
up,  he  stood,  and  began  to  walk;  and  he  entered  with 
them  into  the  temple,  walking,  and  leaping,  and  prais¬ 
ing  God.”' — Acts  3 : 4-8. 

CHRISTIANS  working  in  fellowship  are 
always  more  useful  and  have  greater 
power  for  good.  One  may  be  able  to 
chase  a  thousand,  but  two  can  put  ten  thousand  to 
flight.  Peter  and  John  were,  perhaps,  the  eldest 
and  the  youngest  of  the  twelve  immortals  who  had 
had  three  years  of  precious  fellowship  with  Christ 
during  the  years  of  His  ministry.  They  were  old 
friends  from  their  fishing  days,  and  one  supple¬ 
mented  the  other.  Peter  and  John  together  were 
more  than  twice  as  effective  as  either  alone. 

It  was  like  Moody  and  Sankey  at  a  later  day, 

139 


140  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Neither  of  them  alone  was  half  as  efficient  in  soul- 
winning  as  the  two  were  together.  Some  one 
sings: 

“  And  as  of  old  by  two  and  two 

His  herald  saints  the  Saviour  sent 
To  soften  hearts  like  morning  dew, 

Where  He  to  shine  in  mercy  meant; 

“  So  evermore  He  deems  His  Name 

Best  honoured,  and  His  way  prepared, 
When  watching  by  His  altar  flame 
He  sees  His  servants  duly  paired. 

“  He  loves  when  age  and  youth  are  met, 
Fervent  old  age  and  youth  serene. 

Their  high  and  low  in  concord  set 
For  sacred  song,  joy's  golden  mean. 

“  So  when  two  work  together,  each  for  each 
Is  quick  to  plan,  and  can  the  other  teach; 

But  when  alone  one  seeks  the  best  to  know, 
His  skill  is  weaker  and  his  thoughts  are 
slow.” 

There  is  a  divine  value  in  the  Scripture  injunc¬ 
tion  that  we  assemble  ourselves  together  to  wor¬ 
ship  God  and  to  increase  our  love  for  Christ. 

This  is  true  not  only  in  our  added  power  in  fel¬ 
lowship,  but  also  in  the  added  regularity  it  brings 
about  in  our  worship.  Just  as  the  healthiest  peo¬ 
ple  are  those  who  eat  wholesome  meals  at  regular 
intervals,  so  you  will  find  the  world  over  that  the 
healthiest  Christians,  the  men  and  women  who  are 


AT  THE  BEAUTIFUL  GATE 


141 


most  effective  as  the  soldiers  of  Jesus  Christ,  are 
those  who  are  scrupulously  careful  to  be  faithful 
and  regular  attendants  at  the  stated  and  customary 
meetings  of  the  church. 

Peter  and  John  were  on  their  way  to  regular 
prayer  meeting  when  this  great  opportunity  came 
to  them  to  save  a  soul  and  greatly  advance  the 
cause  of  Christ.  Thomas,  the  doubting  disciple, 
had  much  sorrow  because  he  was  not  at  prayer 
meeting  when  Jesus  appeared  to  the  others;  so 
Peter  and  John  were  greatly  blessed  on  their  way 
to  prayer  meeting. 

It  is  an  exceedingly  interesting  story.  It  is  a 
week-day  morning  prayer  meeting.  It  is  a  blessed 
privilege  and  a  glorious  habit  to  start  every  day 
with  prayer. 

“  Do  not  hurry  in  the  morning 
To  the  duties  of  the  day; 

Spend  a  little  time  with  Jesus, 

Reverently  kneel  and  pray. 

“  Constantly  He  longs  to  guide  us 
On  our  journey  day  by  day; 

Longs  to  bless  us  with  His  presence, 

As  we  pass  along  the  way.” 

And  when  God  blesses  us,  it  means  that  we  be¬ 
come  a  blessing  to  others. 

Peter  and  John,  on  their  way  to  the  morning 
prayer  meeting,  drew  near  to  the  gate  Beautiful, 


142  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


the  principal  entrance  to  the  Temple,  and  there, 
waiting,  with  the  beggar’s  whine  and  the  beggar’s 
expectant  look,  sat  a  man  who  had  been  crippled 
and  lame  from  the  day  he  was  born,  and  who  for 
many  years  had  been  carried  by  his  friends  and 
set  down  in  this  place  to  beg  alms.  And  as  Peter 
and  John  drew  near,  he  asked  an  aim  of  them, 
and  they  paused  to  look  at  him.  The  two  friends 
fastened  their  eyes  on  him  together,  and  Peter, 
speaking  for  both  of  them,  said  in  a  commanding 
voice,  “  Look  on  us !  ” 

What  interest  that  must  have  excited  in  that 
lame  man’s  mind.  I  venture  that  never  in  all  the 
years  he  had  lain  there  had  any  one  ever  said 
anything  like  that.  He  must  have  felt  that  some¬ 
thing  unusual  was  about  to  happen.  I  can  see  the 
quickened,  intense  look  growing  in  his  bored, 
weary  eyes.  And  then  Peter  says:  “  Silver  and 
gold  have  I  none.”  The  eyes  show  a  little  dim¬ 
inution  of  interest;  perhaps  there  is  nothing  com¬ 
ing  after  all — a  beggar  must  have  many  disap¬ 
pointments.  But  Peter  goes  on  quickly:  “  But 
what  I  have,  that  give  I  thee.”  The  interest 
quickens  in  the  lame  man’s  eyes  again.  He  won¬ 
ders  what  Peter  is  going  to  give.  And  then  the 
wonderful  thing  happens.  The  voice  of  Peter 
gathers  in  power  and  authority  as  he  cries:  “In 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  walk.” 


AT  THE  BEAUTIFUL  GATE 


143 


And  he  took  him  by  the  right  hand,  and  lifted 
him  up ;  and  immediately  his  feet  and  ankle-bones 
received  strength,  and  he,  leaping  up,  stood,  and 
walked,  and  entered  with  them  into  the  Temple, 
walking,  and  leaping,  and  praising  God. 

Peter  and  John  had  neither  silver  nor  gold,  but 
yet  they  were  able  to  greatly  bless  this  man.  No 
millionaire  on  earth  could  have  blessed  him  as 
much  as  these  penniless  Christian  ministers  were 
able  to  do. 

Dan  Crawford,  the  veteran  African  missionary, 
who  wrote  “  Thinking  Black,”  used  to  lecture  on 
“  The  Glory  of  Doing  Without,”  showing  how 
much  one  can  do,  and  gain,  by  working  amid  dis¬ 
advantages  and  limitations.  He  illustrated  this  by 
a  story  of  a  hunting  expedition  with  an  African 
chief.  They  came  to  a  thicket  where  it  was 
thought  that  a  herd  of  deer  were  concealed.  “  Do 
you  see  any?”  asked  the  chief.  Dr.  Crawford 
looked  through  his  spy-glass  and  said:  “  I  think 
I  can  see  two  deer.”  The  chief,  looking  with  his 
naked  eyes,  said,  “  I  can  see  twenty.” 

The  lack  of  glasses  had  made  him  train  his  eyes. 
Peter  and  John  had  no  money  to  give  away,  but 
they  had  come  into  such  relation  to  God  and  Christ 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  that  they  could  give  such 
blessings  as  no  money  could  buy.  For  forty  years 
this  man  had  lain  helpless;  but  now,  at  the  word 


144  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


of  Peter  and  through  his  hand,  acting  as  does  the 
carbon  in  the  electric  bulb  with  relation  to  the 
electric  current,  that  power  which  is  back  of  and 
the  source  of  the  electric  current  passed  to  him 
and  healed  him,  both  in  body  and  soul.  It  is  a 
wonderful  thing  to  be  carbon  to  God's  electricity 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  bless  the  world ! 

I  have  been  reading  recently  the  wonderful  re¬ 
search  work  of  Thomas  A.  Edison,  which  led  to 
the  discovery  of  the  thread  of  carbon  now  used  in 
the  glass  bulb  of  our  ordinary  electric  lights.  The 
great  inventor  tried  all  sorts  of  metals  first,  but 
when  the  current  became  powerful,  each  would 
melt  and  the  light  would  fail.  Then,  at  last,  came 
the  discovery  which  led  to  the  use  of  the  delicate 
fibre.  But  the  thing  that  set  my  heart  to  beating 
like  a  trip-hammer  because  of  its  wonderful  spiri¬ 
tual  analogy,  was  that  the  thread  of  fibre  that  is 
used  must  first  give  itself  to  the  flame.  It  cannot 
be  used  until  it  is  itself  consumed.  Then  it  will 
communicate  the  electric  fire  and  light  to  the 
world.  It  is  like  that  with  a  Christian.  He  can¬ 
not  bring  the  heavenly  fire  to  the  heart  of  his  fel¬ 
low  men  until  he  has  been  consumed  himself  upon 
the  altar  of  God.  It  was  because  Peter  and  John 
had  themselves  been  consumed  by  the  flame  from 
heaven,  that  God  was  able  to  send  the  current  of 
His  healing  mercy  through  them  to  the  lame  man 


AT  THE  BEAUTIFUL  GATE 


145 


at  the  Beautiful  Gate.  We  cannot  lift  others  above 
our  own  level.  In  the  grammar  of  Christianity, 
“To  Be  comes  before  To  Do.”  If  we,  ourselves, 
are  full  of  doubts,  hate,  evil  tempers,  bad  passions, 
we  cannot  impart  courage,  hope,  love,  or  goodness. 
The  greatest  tragedy  of  the  Christian  Church  to¬ 
day  is  in  the  attempt  of  cold,  selfish  hearts  to 
carry  heaven’s  current  of  mercy  and  salvation  to  a 
lost  world.  We  cannot  kindle  others  unless  we, 
ourselves,  are  on  fire  from  above. 

“  O  lead  me,  Lord,  that  I  may  lead 

The  wandering  and  the  wayward  feet. 

O  feed  me,  Lord,  that  I  may  feed 
The  hungry  ones  with  manna  sweet. 

“  O  strengthen  me,  that  while  I  stand 
Firm  on  the  rock,  and  strong  in  Thee, 

I  may  stretch  out  a  loving  hand 

To  wrestlers  with  the  troubled  sea.” 

Peter  and  John  did  not  heal  the  lame  man’s 
body  or  convert  his  soul  through  any  strength  of 
their  own,  but  through  the  power  of  the  divine 
Christ  who  was  their  Saviour  and  Lord.  The 
credentials  of  Christ  are  in  what  He  does  for  men. 

Professor  Thomson,  a  brain  expert,  tells  us  that 
the  brain  of  the  chimpanzee  and  orang  apes  are 
exactly  like  the  brain  of  a  human  being,  and  that 
the  human  brain  does  not  possess  a  single  small 
convolution  which  is  not  also  present  in  the  brains 


146  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


of  the  apes.  Suppose  now  that  some  visitor  from 
some  other  planet  should  see  these  two  man-like 
beings.  How  could  he  know  which  was  man  and 
which  was  ape?  Only  by  what  they  could  do. 
The  man  could  read  and  write,  build  houses,  rail¬ 
roads,  transform  a  wilderness  into  a  garden.  The 
chimpanzee  could  do  none  of  these  things.  What 
the  man  can  do  is  the  proof  that  he  has  a  soul  im¬ 
planted  by  the  Almighty  and  ever-living  God.  So 
Jesus  did  works  that  man  could  not  do.  His  mir¬ 
acles  were  signs  and  proof  that  He  was  not  a  mere 
man,  but  the  Son  of  God  in  a  far  higher  sense 
than  man  is. 

We  do  not  need  that  kind  of  miracles  to-day. 
We  see  the  supernatural  works  of  the  risen  Christ 
in  what  He  has  done  and  is  doing  in  the  world. 
No  other  religion  has  done  such  wonders  as  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  doing  to-day  all  over  the  world. 

Roger  Babson,  the  greatest  financial  and  statis¬ 
tical  expert  living  on  earth  at  the  present  time, 
has  probed  to  the  depths  the  causes  of  widespread 
dishonesty  in  business  in  this  present  chaotic  con¬ 
dition  following  as  an  aftermath  of  the  great 
World  War,  and  he  says: 

“  The  need  of  the  hour  is  not  more  factories  or 
materials,  not  more  railroads  or  steamships,  not  more 
armies  or  more  navies,  but  rather  more  education 
based  on  the  teachings  of  Jesus.  The  prosperity  of 
pur  country  depends  on  the  motives  and  purposes  of 


AT  THE  BEAUTIFUL  GATE 


147 


the  people.  These  motives  and  purposes  are  directed 
only  in  the  right  course  through  religion.  In  spite 
of  their  imperfections,  this  is  why  I  believe  in  our 
churches,  and  why  I  am  a  great  optimist  on  their 
future.  We  stand  at  the  crossroads.  We  must 
choose  between  God  and  mammon.  Materialism  is 
undermining  our  civilization  as  it  has  undermined 
other  civilizations.  Unless  we  heed  the  warning  in 
time  and  get  back  to  the  real  fundamentals,  we  must 
fall  even  as  the  civilizations  of  Egypt,  Greece  and 
Rome  fell — and  for  the  same  reason.  Statistics  of 
every  nation  indicate  that  true  religion  is  the  power 
necessary  for  the  development  of  its  resources,  and 
for  its  successful  continuation.” 

The  work  of  Jesus  Christ  is  as  convincing  of 
His  divinity  to-day  to  any  open  mind  as  in  the 
days  when  He  dwelt  in  human  form  on  earth. 
Take  this  example: 

Two  neighbours,  a  Mr.  Welch  and  a  Mr.  John¬ 
son,  living  in  adjoining  houses,  were  talking  across 
the  hedge  which  divided  their  front  lawns.  Mr. 
Welch  was  an  earnest  Christian;  Mr.  Johnson  was 
inclined  to  be  skeptical  about  the  divinity  of  Chris¬ 
tianity.  In  the  course  of  their  conversation  John¬ 
son  said:  “  Of  course,  no  one  believes  in  miracles 
nowadays.” 

“  That  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  ‘  mir¬ 
acles/  ”  said  Mr.  Welch,  thoughtfully.  “  I  be¬ 
lieve  in  them,  myself.” 

“  You  mean  that  you  think  that  miracles  oc¬ 
curred  in  the  time  of  Christ?  They  certainly  do 


148  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


not  occur  now.  Miracles  belong  to  the  age  of 
superstition,  to  the  childhood  of  the  race,”  replied 
Mr.  Johnson. 

“  I  don’t  know  about  that,”  said  Mr.  Welch. 
“  If  you  agree  that  a  miracle  is  a  change  due  to 
supernatural  power,  I  can  show  you  a  miracle  to¬ 
night,  right  here  in  this  city.  Will  you  go  with 
me  and  promise  to  look  and  listen  with  an  open 
mind  without  prejudice?  ” 

“  Surely  I  will.” 

The  two  men  met  after  supper  that  night,  and 
Welch  took  his  friend  to  the  very  worst  part  of 
the  city,  a  section  where  Johnson  had  never  before 
been.  They  went  into  a  little  hall  that  was 
crowded  with  a  throng  of  men  and  women  so 
dilapidated  in  appearance  that  Johnson  whispered 
to  Welch,  “  What  sort  of  a  place  have  you  got  me 
into?  This  must  be  a  meeting  of  all  the  ‘down 
and  outs.’  ” 

“  It  is,”  said  Welch  briefly. 

After  the  leader  had  given  out  a  hymn  and 
made  a  short  prayer,  a  big  man  with  a  voice  like 
thunder  rose  and  spoke. 

For  half  an  hour  he  poured  forth  a  perfect  tor¬ 
rent  of  appeal  to  that  roomful  of  lost  men  and 
women.  He  begged,  urged,  commanded  them  to 
come  to  God. 

When  he  finished,  a  score  of  men  and  women 


AT  THE  BEAUTIFUL  GATE 


149 


went  forward,  and  that  big  man  knelt  with  them 
and  prayed  for  them  so  tenderly  that  Johnson 
found  his  face  wet  with  tears. 

When  the  meeting  closed  and  Welch  and  John¬ 
son  went  out  together  into  the  street,  Welch  said, 
“  Well,  you  have  seen  your  miracle/' 

“  I  grant,"  said  Johnson,  “  that  I  have  seen  an 
interesting  sight  and  heard  a  good  talk,  but  where 
is  the  miracle?  " 

This  was  Welch's  reply:  “  Nine  months  ago  that 
man  you  heard  talk  was  a  professional  gambler 
and  thief.  He  has  been  in  State  prison  six  dif¬ 
ferent  times.  He  has  spent  a  fortune  in  drink  and 
vice.  To-day  he  is  engaged  in  an  honest  trade. 
He  has  abandoned  all  his  old,  evil  habits,  and  every 
hour  he  can  spare  he  labours  to  redeem  lost  men 
and  women.  He  is  a  devout,  prayerful  man.  I 
say  he  is  a  modern  miracle,  as  great  as  any  Jesus 
Christ  ever  performed.  Could  anything  except 
miraculous  power  make  that  man  what  he  is  to¬ 
night?  " 

Johnson  was  silent  for  a  few  moments,  and  then 
said:  “You  are  right.  I  shall  never  disbelieve 
in  miracles  again." 

Thank  God,  the  most  wonderful  miracle  in  all 
history  is  being  performed  again  and  again  in 
every  land  where  Jesus  is  faithfully  proclaimed. 

General  Booth,  founder  of  the  Salvation  Army, 


150  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


once  in  his  early  ministry  had  his  little  chapel  next 
to  an  iron  foundry.  These  iron  workers  were  con¬ 
stantly  seeing  the  red-hot  iron  converted  into  use¬ 
ful  instruments.  They  saw  the  same  thing  hap¬ 
pening  in  a  spiritual  way  in  Booth’s  chapel,  and 
they  nicknamed  it  “  The  Converting  Shop.”  They 
saw  there  a  great  spiritual  power  that  could  take 
hold  of  men’s  lives  and  change  them.  They  be¬ 
came  red-hot  in  heart,  and  then  something  divine 
laid  hold  on  them;  and,  when  they  came  out,  they 
were  different. 

The  Christian  Church  the  world  over  should  be 
a  converting  shop  to  take  hold  on  the  common  ore 
out  of  this  wicked  world  and  fashion  it  into  some¬ 
thing  useful  and  beautiful  both  for  earth  and 
heaven. 

The  lame  man  at  the  Beautiful  Gate  had  lain 
useless  for  forty  years,  but  now,  healed  in  body 
and  soul,  he  became  a  useful  and  a  happy  member 
of  the  community.  But  no  doubt  ever  and  again, 
in  the  midst  of  his  rejoicing  life,  he  would  think 
with  regret  of  those  forty  years  of  uselessness. 
And  so  I  want  especially  to  appeal  to  young  men 
and  women.  Why  not  give  your  heart  to  Christ  in 
your  youth,  so  that  all  your  life  you  may  to  the  last 
limit  serve  God  and  bless  your  fellow  men?  Why 
have  another  year,  or  even  another  day,  of  sin,  or 
idleness,  or  neglect  of  God  and  duty  to  recall  here- 


AT  THE  BEAUTIFUL  GATE 


151 


after?  Make  the  best  of  your  life  that  it  is  possi¬ 
ble  to  make  of  it. 

Come  to  Christ  now  with  these  words  of  hope 
and  confident  prayer  on  your  lips  and  in  your 
heart : 


“  Just  as  I  am,  Thine  own  to  be, 

Friend  of  the  young,  who  lovest  me, 
To  consecrate  myself  to  Thee, 

O  Jesus  Christ,  I  come. 

“  In  the  glad  morning  of  my  day, 

My  life  to  give,  my  vows  to  pay, 

With  no  reserve  and  no  delay, 

With  all  my  heart,  I  come. 

“  I  would  live  ever  in  the  light ; 

I  would  work  ever  for  the  right ; 

I  would  serve  Thee  with  all  my  might ; 
Therefore  to  Thee  I  come. 

“  Just  as  I  am,  young,  strong,  and  free, 
To  be  the  best  that  I  can  be, 

For  truth  and  righteousness  and  Thee, 
Lord  of  my  life,  I  come. 

“  With  many  dreams  of  fame  and  gold, 
Success  and  joy  to  make  me  bold, 

But  dearer  still  my  faith  to  hold, 

For  my  whole  life  I  come. 

“  And  for  Thy  sake  to  win  renown, 

And  then  to  take  my  victor’s  crown, 
And  at  Thy  feet  to  cast  it  down, 

O  Master,  Lord,  I  come.” 


XII 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  THE  CHIEF 

OF  SINNERS 

“  Faithful  is  the  saying  and  worthy  of  all  accep¬ 
tation,  that  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners;  of  whom  I  am  chief.” — i  Timothy  i  :  15. 

TAKEN  in  all  its  aspects,  considering  the 
streams  of  influence  that  have  followed 
it,  the  conversion  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  into 
St.  Paul  is  in  my  judgment  the  greatest  and  most 
important  event  in  human  history  since  the  resur¬ 
rection  of  Jesus  Christ.  Paul  was  a  man  of  first 
magnitude.  Some  men  have  been  great  in  mental 
grasp,  and  others  have  been  great  in  action.  Paul 
was  equally  great  in  thought  and  in  the  power  to 
carry  his  plans  into  execution.  Paul  was  a  provi¬ 
dential  man  to  lift  Christianity  out  of  Judaism — 
a  religion  for  the  Jews  only — up  to  the  world 
plane,  and  make  it,  as  God  purposed  it,  and  as 
Jesus  declared  it,  a  religion  for  all  mankind. 

To  do  this,  Paul  had  to  overcome  the  most  bitter 
prejudices  the  world  has  ever  known.  He  had  to 
overcome  the  Jewish  hatred  for  the  Gentile  and 
the  Gentile  contempt  for  the  Jew.  To  do  this,  you 

would  think,  would  require  a  man  to  be  two  men 

152 


THE  CHIEF  OF  SINNERS 


153 


at  one  and  the  same  time,  and  that  was  practically 
what  Paul  was.  By  birth  he  was  a  Jew,  but  by 
citizenship  he  was  a  Gentile  who  prided  himself 
on  his  free  Roman  citizenship. 

When  Paul  began  his  preaching  of  Christ,  nearly 
all  the  Christians  were  Jews,  and  Paul's  great  mis¬ 
sion  was  to  persuade  these  Jewish  Christians  to 
give  their  Messiah  to  be  the  Messiah  to  the  Gen¬ 
tiles,  and  to  persuade  the  Gentiles  to  accept  a  Jew¬ 
ish  Messiah  as  their  Saviour  and  Lord.  The  only 
way  this  could  be  done  was  by  leading  both  Jews 
and  Gentiles  up  to  the  higher,  broader  plane  of  a 
common  humanity  in  the  fatherhood  of  God  and 
the  brotherhood  of  the  human  race.  Men  of 
strong  intellect  are  often  as  narrow  as  they  are 
strong;  but  Paul  had  a  mind  at  once  strong  and 
broad.  As  James  Freeman  Clarke  said  of  him, 
“  The  mind  of  Paul  had  the  energy  of  a  mountain 
torrent  and  the  breadth  of  an  inland  lake.”  He 
had  a  zeal  and  enthusiasm  that  burned  its  way 
through  all  obstacles,  yet  it  was  ever  directed  by  a 
mind  that  was  calm  and  clear  and  rational. 

Glance  a  moment  only  at  his  story,  to  get  a 
proper  view  of  his  wonderful  mental  equipment. 

He  was  a  Jewish  boy,  born  in  a  Grecian  city 
renowned  throughout  Asia  Minor  for  its  literature 
and  elegant  arts.  Then  he  moved  to  Jerusalem, 
where  he  went  through  the  training  of  the  Phari- 


154  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


sees,  zealously  observing  all  their  strict  ecclesias¬ 
tical  forms  and  regulations.  No  one  ever  gave  the 
religion  of  the  Pharisees  a  more  thorough  trial 
than  Paul.  Meantime,  while  he  was  having  this 
moral  training  as  a  Pharisee,  his  mind  was  being 
developed  under  Gamaliel,  the  wisest  and  most 
learned  teacher  of  his  time.  It  was  this  brilliant, 
scholarly,  intense  Roman  Jew  who  was  brought 
face  to  face  with  Christianity  at  the  martyrdom 
of  Stephen,  the  first  of  the  early  Christians  to  die 
gladly  for  his  faith  in  Jesus. 

Stephen  was  undoubtedly  a  young  man  of  splen¬ 
did  mind  as  well  as  of  a  personality  singularly 
genuine  and  pure.  He  was  brought  before  the 
Sanhedrim  charged  with  blasphemy  against  God, 
against  Moses,  against  the  temple,  and  against  di¬ 
vine  laws  and  customs.  The  defense,  a  condensed 
account  of  which  Luke  has  given  us,  is  very  clear 
and  strong.  He  showed  that  the  temple  was  not 
essential  to  true  worship,  since  Abraham  made  a 
covenant  with  God  when  there  was  no  temple; 
that  God  was  with  Joseph  in  the  prison  in  Egypt, 
when  there  was  no  temple  ;  with  Moses  on  Mount 
Sinai,  when  there  was  no  temple;  with  the  He¬ 
brews  in  the  wilderness,  without  a  temple.  There¬ 
fore,  Stephen  argued  that  the  temple  might  be  de¬ 
stroyed  and  the  true  worship,  acceptable  to  God, 
still  go  on.  That  he  was  not  the  one  guilty  of 


THE  CHIEF  OF  SINNERS 


155 


\ 

blasphemy,  but  those  who  had  wickedly  crucified 
Jesus. 

The  presence  and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  must 
have  been  remarkably  manifest  in  Stephen’s  face 
and  personality  as  he  spoke.  In  the  hall  of  the 
Sanhedrim  adjoining  the  temple  the  seventy 
judges,  leading  the  people  of  the  nation,  sat  in  a 
semicircle.  Stephen,  brought  in  by  the  officers,  is 
standing  before  them  on  trial  for  his  life,  and  for 
the  great  cause  which  is  dearer  than  life  to  him. 
As  he  spoke  the  inner  radiance  of  his  soul  shone 
forth,  illuminating  his  face.  It  was  what  Joseph 
Cook  once  called  the  solar  look  from  “  the  Sun 
behind  the  sun.”  “  Other  things  being  equal,”  said 
Joseph  Cook,  “  Csesar’s  eye  goes  down  whenever 
it  meets  and  does  not  possess  the  solar  look.  The 
veriest  sick  girl,  with  this  solar  light  behind  her 
eyeballs,  is  more  than  a  match  for  Caesar  without 
it.  This  radiance  cannot  be  counterfeited,  it  must 
have  an  adequate  cause.”  And  as  the  members 
of  the  Council  looked  on  Stephen’s  face  as  he 
spoke,  they  were  amazed  before  that  solar  look. 
For  instead  of  any  sign  of  fear  or  dread  they 
“  saw  his  face  as  it  had  been  the  face  of  an  angel.” 
It  was  the  Sun  behind  the  sun.  It  was  a  divine 
illumination  from  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
It  was  like  Moses’  face  when  he  had  been  forty 
days  on  Mount  Sinai  alone  with  God.  It  was  like 


156  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS" 


the  face  of  Jesus  on  the  Mount  of  Transfigura¬ 
tion.  One  would  think  such  a  manifestation  of 
God’s  presence  would  have  broken  their  opposition 
and  melted  their  hearts;  but  their  prejudice  and 
hate  resisted  the  divine  influence  and  made  them 
hate  him  worse  than  ever.  In  one  room  of  the 
Palace  of  Light  at  the  great  Exposition  at  Paris, 
there  was  a  long  row  of  peculiar  mirrors,  in  which 
you  saw  yourself  in  every  odd,  peculiar,  distorted 
fashion,  except  your  one  natural  image.  So  these 
men  saw  the  statements  and  personality  of  Stephen 
changed  and  distorted  by  their  prejudice  and 
hatred.  They  were  cut  to  the  heart,  and  in  the 
devilish  hatred  of  their  wicked  souls  they  rushed 
upon  him  and  fairly  gnashed  upon  him  with  their 
teeth,  but  instead  of  reviling  them,  he  looked  up¬ 
ward  with  that  glory  face  and  exclaimed,  “  I  see 
the  heavens  opened,  and  the  Son  of  man  standing 
on  the  right  hand  of  God.” 

That  was  too  much !  They  must  kill  him.  They 
stopped  their  ears,  and  lifted  him  in  their  arms, 
and  cast  him  out  of  the  city,  where  they  could 
stone  him  to  death;  and  as  I  see  going  with  them 
Saul  of  Tarsus,  and  when  the  awful  murder  is 
under  way,  see  him  selected  as  master  of  the  deed, 
and  see  the  men  who  are  stoning  Stephen  first  lay¬ 
ing  their  outer  clothes  down  at  his  feet  while  he 
looks  on  with  approval,  while  he  gazes  on  Stephen, 


THE  CHIEF  OF  SINNERS 


157 


who  under  that  cruel  shower  of  stones  falls  on  his 
knees  and  cries  out  to  God,  “  Lord,  lay  not  this 
sin  to  their  charge,”  and  a  little  later,  “  Lord 
Jesus,  receive  my  spirit”;  I  do  not  wonder  that 
many  years  afterward,  when  writing  to  Timothy, 
Paul  calls  himself  the  chief  of  sinners. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  that  horrible  death  of 
Stephen  was  the  first  step  in  the  conversion  of  St. 
Paul. 

At  first  the  loss  of  Stephen  seemed  irreparable 
to  Christianity.  The  early  Christians  were  scat¬ 
tered  to  the  four  winds.  But  we  may  trust  God 
to  take  care  of  His  cause.  When,  at  a  seemingly 
critical  moment,  a  man  or  a  woman  dies,  we  are 
ready  to  cry  out,  “The  loss  is  irreparable;  that 
man  cannot  be  spared.  That  young  mother,  how 
can  her  children  do  without  her?  That  father, 
the  support  of  his  family;  that  statesman,  the  tried 
ruler,  the  one  man  in  whom  all  trust,  on  whom  all 
lean.”  So  men  talked  when  Phillips  Brooks  died, 
and  when  Lincoln  was  assassinated,  and  when 
Roosevelt  went  so  suddenly.  So  it  was  when 
Stephen  was  killed  at  the  threshold  of  what  seemed 
a  glorious  career.  “  So  it  was,”  says  Freeman 
Clarke,  “  still  more,  when  Jesus  went, — the  one 
Being  in  the  world  whom  the  world  could  not  do 
without;  whose  place  no  one  could  take.  The 
good  and  the  wise,  the  pure  and  generous  go;  the 


158  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


souls  of  genius,  the  creatures  of  divine  inspiration, 
they  go.  And  then  God  raises  them  up  on  high, 
to  look  down  on  us  from  above,  and  be  our  in¬ 
spiration.  Their  great  lives  and  holy  examples 
inspire  us  to  new  effort.  The  memory  of  the 
mother  lives  in  her  children’s  hearts.  When  Jesus 
went  away.  He  came  nearer  to  His  friends  than 
He  had  been  before.  The  sight  of  Stephen’s  death, 
the  sound  of  Stephen’s  voice,  his  face  like  that  of 
an  angel,  his  cry  of  joy  and  triumph  in  the  midst 
of  his  agony,  these  were  the  first  steps  in  the  con¬ 
version  of  St.  Paul.” 

At  first  Saul  went  on  gloomy,  sullen,  more  set 
than  ever  to  blot  the  very  name  of  Jesus  out  of 
the  earth.  Luke  graphically  describes  it  in  saying 
that  when  Saul  went  to  the  High  Priest  for  letters 
to  Damascus  he  was  fairly  “  breathing  threatening 
and  slaughter  against  the  disciples  of  the  Lord.” 

And  then  it  happened.  Who  can  tell  it  so  well 
as  Paul  himself?  Many  years  later,  standing  be¬ 
fore  King  Agrippa,  Paul  said:  “At  midday,  O 
king,  I  saw  on  the  way  a  light  from  heaven,  above 
the  brightness  of  the  sun,  shining  around  about  me 
and  them  that  journeyed  with  me.  And  when  we 
were  all  fallen  to  the  earth,  I  heard  a  voice  saying 
unto  me  in  the  Hebrew  language,  Saul,  Saul,  why 
persecutest  thou  me?  it  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick 
against  the  goad.  And  I  said,  Who  art  thou, 


THE  CHIEF  OF  SINNEES 


159 


Lord?  And  the  Lord  said,  I  am  Jesus  whom  thou 
persecutest.” 

That  day  this  wonderful  man  ceased  to  be  Saul 
the  persecutor,  and  became  Paul  the  Christian. 

Saul  had  been  kicking  against  the  goad  ever 
since  the  day  he  had  looked  on  that  man  with  the 
angel  face  and  heard  his  earnest  defense.  Oxen 
were  used  in  farming  in  Saul's  day,  and  when  the 
rebellious  oxen  flung  out  their  heels  in  angry  pro¬ 
test,  they  encountered  a  somewhat  cruel  device. 
The  team  or  shaft  of  the  ploughshare  was  faced 
with  small,  sharp  iron  spikes;  and  when  they 
kicked,  they  were  painfully  wounded.  So  Saul 
had  in  his  own  memory  and  conscience,  memories 
of  Stephen's  defense,  and  Stephen’s  face,  and  the 
love  and  tenderness  of  his  dying  prayer,  sharp 
goads  that  kept  him  under  continual  conviction  of 
sin,  so  that  when  Jesus  appeared  to  him  with  this 
clear  cut  declaration,  Saul  felt  the  truth  of  Christ’s 
statement  and  at  the  same  moment  was  convinced 
that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  the  Christ  of  God, 
and  Saviour  of  the  world;  the  only  one  who  could 
forgive  sins,  and  that  he  was  a  sinner  in  dire  need 
of  forgiveness.  And  in  that  tremendous  moment 
he  cried  out,  “  Lord,  what  wilt  thou  have  me  to 
do?” 

That  was  the  great  surrender.  Saul’s  salvation 
was  certain  from  that  moment.  The  going  on  to 


160  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Damascus,  the  coming  of  Ananias  the  saint  to 
open  his  eyes,  all  that  followed  was  only  incidental. 
The  great  moment  was  when  Saul,  seeing  his  sin, 
surrendered  and  said,  “  Lord,  what  wilt  thou 
have  me  to  do  ?  ” 

How  wonderful  was  that  conversion !  Saul,  the 
brightest  young  man  of  his  age,  was  thoroughly 
convinced  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  and  His  power 
to  forgive  sins.  The  change  in  him  was  complete. 
Old  things  passed  away,  and  all  things  became 
new.  He  put  off  the  old  man  with  his  evil  deeds, 
and  he  put  on  the  new  man,  clothed  upon  with  the 
purity  and  love  of  Christ.  All  the  turmoil  and 
strife  and  hatred  that  had  been  raging  in  his  soul 
was  cast  out,  and  he  was  filled  with  a  great  peace. 
Every  past  ambition  and  purpose  of  his  life  he 
threw  away  to  become  the  witness  to  Christ  and 
His  power  to  save.  Long  afterward  he  could  say, 
“  Yea  verily,  and  I  count  all  things  to  be  loss  for 
the  excellency  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus 
my  Lord;  for  whom  I  suffered  the  loss  of  all 
things,  and  do  count  them  but  refuse,  that  I  may 
gain  Christ,  and  be  found  in  him,  not  having  a 
righteousness  of  mine  own,  even  that  which  is  of 
the  law,  but  that  which  is  through  faith  in  Christ, 
the  righteousness  which  is  from  God  by  faith/’ 

How  wonderfully  Paul’s  conversion  stood  the 
test  No  test  can  be  conceived  that  Paul  did  not 


THE  CHIEF  OF  SINNERS 


161 


endure,  and  yet  on  land  or  sea,  in  sickness  and  in 
health,  among  enemies  or  friends,  Paul  was  the 
steadfast,  joyous  witness  to  the  Christ  who  ap¬ 
peared  to  him  on  the  way  to  Damascus. 

A  good  many  years  ago  I  went  down  one  sum¬ 
mer  day  with  a  company  of  friends  into  that  old 
prison  that  used  to  be  the  dungeon  under  Caesar’s 
palace,  where  Paul  had  his  last  days  on  earth ;  and 
the  tears  of  grateful  love  ran  down  my  face  as 
one  of  our  number  read  aloud  to  us  the  words  Paul 
wrote  to  Timothy  in  those  days  as  he  waited  in 
suspense  for  his  martyrdom.  “  For  I  am  already 
being  offered,  and  the  time  of  my  departure  is 
come.  I  have  fought  the  good  fight,  I  have 
finished  the  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith:  hence¬ 
forth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  the  crown  of  right¬ 
eousness,  which  the  Lord,  the  righteous  judge,  shall 
give  me  at  that  day;  and  not  to  me  only,  but  also 
to  all  them  that  have  loved  his  appearing.,,  And 
we  went  up  into  the  Italian  sunlight,  out  of  that 
damp  dungeon,  asking  God  that  we,  too,  might 
make  good  as  Paul  did  in  the  Christian  race. 

Some  of  you  are  kicking  against  the  goad. 
You,  too,  are  under  conviction  of  sin.  You  be¬ 
lieve  that  you  are  sinners  against  God.  You  be¬ 
lieve  that  Jesus  has  power  to  forgive  sin,  and  that 
salvation  must  come  through  Him.  And  yet  you 
are  unsaved.  Oh,  I  pray  God  you  may  follow 


162  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Paul's  example  and  surrender  now  to  the  Christ 
who  has  appeared  to  you  as  surely  as  He  did  to 
Paul,  and  who  is  as  ready  and  willing  to  save  you 
and  fill  your  life  with  untold  usefulness  and  bless¬ 
ing  as  He  did  his.  As  that  midday  vision  on  the 
way  to  Damascus  was  always  the  great  sunrise  to 
which  Paul  turned  to  gather  courage  and  to  get 
evidence  to  reply  to  his  enemies,  so  to-day  may  be 
the  great  sunrise  of  your  life  if,  like  Paul,  you  will 
now  say,  “  Lord,  what  wilt  thou  have  me  to  do?  ” 


XIII 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  A  ROMAN  CEN¬ 
TURION  AND  HIS  FRIENDS 

“  While  Peter  yet  spake  these  words,  the  Holy 
Spirit  fell  on  all  them  that  heard  the  word.” 

— Acts  10:44. 


HE  conversion  of  Cornelius  and  his 
friends  to  the  number  of  perhaps  over 
one  hundred  is  one  of  the  most  wonder¬ 
ful  of  all  the  stories  of  the  spiritual  conquests  of 
early  Christianity. 

If  we  judge  from  the  centurions  which  appear 
in  the  New  Testament  record,  we  would  be  forced 
to  the  opinion  that  among  the  captains  or  cen¬ 
turions  of  the  Roman  army  at  the  time  of  the 
ministry  of  Jesus,  and  the  generation  which  fol¬ 
lowed,  were  to  be  found  men  who  were  the  very 
flower  of  honour  and  chivalry.  Prof.  W.  M.  Clow 
of  Edinburgh  says  that  the  Roman  Empire  was 
already  in  decline;  but,  like  every  great  organiza¬ 
tion,  it  had  begun  to  die  at  the  heart.  And  when 
the  pestilence  of  moral  corruption  had  infected  the 
governors  and  counselors  of  Rome,  there  were 
still  to  be  found  in  the  army  men  of  fearless  truth, 

of  fine  courtesy,  and  of  incorruptible  purity.  How 

163 


164  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


the  governors  in  the  New  Testament  stand  out  in 
contrast  to  the  centurions  described  there !  All  the 
four  centurions  are  men  of  moral,  even  spiritual, 
beauty.  Of  one  of  them  the  Jews  said,  “  He 
loveth  our  nation,  and  hath  built  us  a  synagogue.” 
And  Jesus  said  of  him,  “  I  have  not  found  so  great 
faith,  no,  not  in  Israel.”  Julius,  another  cen¬ 
turion,  described  as  “  The  Centurion  of  Augustus’ 
Band,”  “  courteously  entreated  Paul,  and  gave  him 
liberty.”  Another  was  the  centurion  who  had 
charge  of  the  arrest  of  Jesus,  and  also  was  in 
command  on  the  day  of  the  crucifixion,  and  who, 
after  watching  Jesus  die,  said,  “  Truly,  this  man 
was  the  Son  of  God.”  The  fourth  was  Cornelius, 
the  centurion  of  the  Italian  band,  stationed  at 
Caesarea.  Cornelius  is  described  by  Luke  as  “  a 
devout  man,  and  one  that  feared  God  with  all  his 
house,  which  gave  much  alms  to  the  people,  and 
prayed  to  God  always,”  which  was  certainly  a  good 
recommendation. 

Perhaps  some  of  you  are  saying,  “  Surely  a  man 
like  that  had  no  need  that  Peter  should  come  and 
preach  Christ  to  him!  ”  But  he  did  need  just  that 
exactly.  And  best  of  all,  Cornelius  knew  he 
needed  it.  It  is  not  enough  to  have  a  sincere 
desire  to  be  a  good  man.  One  may  have  that  all 
his  life  and  still  fail.  Cornelius  was  one  of  the 
sort  of  men  Dean  Farrar  has  called  “  seekers  after 


A  ROMAN  CENTURION 


165 


God  ” ;  men  like  Socrates,  Seneca,  Epictetus  and 
Marcus  Aurelius.  But  Cornelius  knew  that  while 
he  was  seeking  after  God,  he  had  not  yet  found 
Him.  And  the  cry  of  his  heart  was  like  the  cry 
of  Job:  “Oh,  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find 
him!  That  I  might  come  even  to  his  seat!  I 
would  set  my  cause  in  order  before  him,  and  fill 
my  mouth  with  arguments.  I  would  know  the 
words  which  he  would  answer  me,  and  understand 
what  he  would  say  unto  me.”  Both  in  Job’s  case 
and  in  that  of  Cornelius,  they  felt  it  was  not 
enough  to  seek  God;  they  must  find  Him,  and 
commune  with  Him.  There  are  many  men  and 
women  like  that  in  Christian  lands  now.  All  their 
lives  they  have  been  influenced  and  restrained  by 
Christian  teaching  and  sentiment.  They  even  say 
prayers  now  and  again  to  God.  In  a  vague  way 
they  seek  after  God,  as  Cornelius  did;  but  they 
need  to  find  Him  in  Jesus  Christ  unto  their  joyous 
salvation. 

This  is  a  strange  story  of  a  prepared  preacher 
for  a  prepared  audience.  One  day  when  Cornelius 
was  at  his  daily  prayer,  a  strange  thing  happened. 
His  prayer  was  answered.  There  are  many  peo¬ 
ple  who  would  be  as  excited  as  was  Cornelius  if 
their  prayers  were  to  be  suddenly  answered. 

While  Cornelius  prayed,  an  angel  stood  beside 
him  in  broad  daylight  and  said :  “  Cornelius,”  and 


166  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


he  was  badly  scared.  But  he  was  a  brave,  true 
man,  and  after  a  moment  he  gathered  courage 
enough  to  ask,  “  What  is  it,  Lord  ?  ”  and  the  angel 
answered,  “  Thy  prayers  and  thine  alms  are  gone 
up  as  a  memorial  before  God.  And  now  send  men 
to  Joppa,  and  fetch  one  Simon,  who  is  surnamed 
Peter:  he  lodgeth  with  one  Simon  a  tanner,  whose 
house  is  by  the  seaside.”  And  immediately  Cor¬ 
nelius  obeyed.  He  called  two  faithful  household 
servants,  and  to  make  sure  they  would  not  be  held 
up  by  the  way,  he  sent  a  reliable  soldier  from  his 
own  company  as  guard,  and  he  opened  his  heart  to 
these  three  messengers  and  told  them  all  that  had 
happened,  and  sent  them  away  over  thirty  miles  to 
Joppa.  It  was  before  the  days  of  autos  or  trolleys, 
and  the  messengers  went  on  foot. 

In  the  meantime,  the  next  morning  Peter  went 
up  on  the  flat  roof  of  the  house  where  he  was  stay¬ 
ing  to  pray  to  God,  and  there  a  wonderful  thing 
happened.  He  went  to  sleep  after  prayer,  being 
very  hungry  and  wishing  dinner  were  ready,  and 
a  remarkable  dream  or  vision  was  given  him.  The 
heaven  seemed  to  open  right  over  his  head,  and  a 
great  sheet  was  let  down  before  him  out  of  the  sky, 
and  in  the  sheet  was  a  great  herd  of  all  kinds  of 
four-footed  beasts  and  creeping  things  and  birds, 
and  a  voice  said  to  him,  “Rise,  Peter;  kill  and 
eat.” 


A  ROMAN  CENTURION 


167 


But  Peter  in  astonishment  said,  “  Not  so,  Lord ; 
for  I  have  never  eaten  anything  that  is  common 
and  unclean.”  And  the  voice  answered  in  rebuke, 
“  What  God  hath  cleansed,  make  not  thou  com¬ 
mon.”  And  this  was  done  three  times. 

Now  while  Peter  was  reflecting  on  this  wonder¬ 
ful  vision,  and  trying  to  understand  it,  the  three 
messengers  from  Cornelius  knocked  at  the  door 
down-stairs.  And  the  Holy  Spirit  made  Peter 
understand  that  they  were  messengers  for  him, 
and  that  it  was  his  duty  to  go  with  them,  doubting 
nothing. 

So  Peter  hurried  down  the  stairs  on  the  outside 
of  the  house,  and  astonished  the  messengers  by 
saying,  as  he  greeted  them:  “I  am  he  whom  ye 
seek:  what  is  the  cause  wherefore  ye  are  come?  ” 
And  they  told  him  their  message  from  Cornelius. 

Then  Peter,  beginning  to  understand  the  vision, 
took  them  into  his  friend’s  house  and  cared  for 
them  over  night,  and  the  next  morning  went  home 
with  them  to  Caesarea.  Realizing,  however,  that 
in  going  to  preach  Christ  to  the  heathen,  or  Gen¬ 
tiles,  as  they  called  them,  he  would  be  criticised,  he 
took  a  committee  of  six  Jewish  Christians  with 
him. 

Cornelius  was  waiting  for  them,  and,  feeling 
that  it  was  a  most  important  occasion,  he  had  sent 
out  and  invited  in  a  great  many  of  his  relatives 


168  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


and  friends,  until  there  were  probably  over  a  hun¬ 
dred  waiting  with  him  for  the  coming  of  Peter. 

Poor  Cornelius!  He  was  a  good  man,  but  just 
a  poor  heathen  at  best ;  and  when  he  saw  Peter,  he 
was  so  anxious  and  excited  that  he  ran  to  meet 
him  and  fell  down  on  his  knees  before  him  in 
worship.  That  shocked  and  embarrassed  Peter, 
who  shouted  as  he  grasped  him  by  the  hand  and 
lifted  him  up:  “  Stand  up;  I  myself  also  am  a 
man !  ” 

Then  the  two  men  stood  and  talked,  and  after 
a  moment  Peter  went  in  and  saw  the  great  com¬ 
pany  which  had  come  together  at  the  call  of  Cor¬ 
nelius,  and  standing  there  before  them  all  Cor¬ 
nelius  told  Peter  and  his  friends  the  story  of  the 
angel  who  had  directed  him  to  send  for  Peter,  that 
he  might  know  the  way  of  life,  and  then  turning 
to  Peter  he  said:  “  Now,  therefore,  we  are  all  here 
present  in  the  sight  of  God,  to  hear  all  things  that 
have  been  commanded  thee  of  the  Lord.” 

Peter  had  an  open  field,  and  he  went  at  it  with 
all  his  heart.  His  first  words  are  historic:  “  Of 
a  truth  I  perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter  of  per¬ 
sons  ;  but  in  every  nation  he  that  feareth  him,  and 
worketh  righteousness,  is  acceptable  to  him.”  And 
from  that  Peter  went  right  on  preaching  the  old, 
ever  new,  Gospel  of  the  birth  and  life  and  minis¬ 
try  of  Jesus,  of  His  death  on  the  cross  for  our 


A  ROMAN  CENTURION 


169 


sins,  and  His  resurrection  from  the  dead.  Re¬ 
member,  it  is  only  a  little  while  since  Jesus’  death, 
and  it  warms  our  hearts  to  see  how  sure  Peter, 
an  eye-witness  of  His  death  and  burial,  is  of  His 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  I  can  see  Peter’s  con¬ 
fident  face  and  flashing  eyes  as  he  shouts  to  the 
assembled  company  in  the  home  of  Cornelius: 
“  Him  God  raised  up  the  third  day,  and  gave  him 
to  be  made  manifest,  not  to  all  the  people,  but  to 
witnesses  that  were  chosen  before  of  God,  even  to 
us,  who  ate  and  drank  with  him  after  he  rose 
from  the  dead.  To  him  bear  all  the  prophets  wit¬ 
ness,  that  through  his  name  every  one  that  be- 
lieveth  on  him  shall  receive  remission  of  sins.” 

It  was  the  old  Gospel,  the  Gospel  you  have  heard 
again  and  again  ever  since  you  were  a  boy  or  girl 
in  Sunday  school.  Man  is  a  sinner.  Jesus  Christ 
is  a  divine  Saviour.  Whosoever  will  may  come  to 
Him  through  faith  and  find  forgiveness  of  all 
their  sins. 

We  have  only  the  barest  outline  of  the  sermon 
from  what  Peter  told  Luke  about  it;  but  as  Peter 
preached  Christ,  the  crucified  and  risen  Saviour, 
the  Holy  Spirit  came  upon  the  people,  and  they 
all  felt  the  power  and  presence  of  God.  It  was  the 
Gentiles’  Pentecost.  And  when  the  six  Jewish 
Christians  who  had  come  from  Joppa  with  Peter 
saw  how  God  blessed  these  Gentiles  who  accepted 


170  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


Christ,  and  heard  their  happy  testimonies,  and 
listened  to  them  praising  God,  they  were  much 
amazed,  and  not  one  of  them  could  make  any  ob¬ 
jection  when  Peter  said,  “  Can  any  man  forbid  the 
wrater,  that  these  should  not  be  baptized,  who  have 
received  the  Holy  Spirit  as  well  as  we  ?  ”  So  he 
commanded  them  to  be  baptized  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ.  So  you  see  Peter  was  more  profita¬ 
ble  to  Cornelius  and  his  friends  than  an  angel. 
Dr.  Arthur  Pierson  used  to  say:  “  However  poor 
a  preacher,  I  can  preach  the  Gospel  better  than 
Gabriel  can,  because  Gabriel  cannot  say  what  I 
can  say,  4 1  am  a  sinner  saved  by  grace/  ” 

No  wonder  that  the  company  of  kindred  and 
friends  who  had  found  Jesus  precious  to  their 
souls  under  Peter’s  preaching  besought  him  to  stay 
with  them  a  few  days  that  he  might  tell  them  more 
of  the  word  of  life. 

Are  there  not  some  lessons  in  this  story  for  the 
Church  to  learn  to-day?  The  truth  that  God  is 
no  respecter  of  persons  is  still  to  be  learned  in 
many  sections.  I  have,  myself,  known  a  number 
of  churches  where  the  laymen  in  control  greatly 
desired  to  have  the  church  grow  in  membership, 
but  they  desired  to  censor  the  list  of  applicants 
according  to  their  wealth  and  culture  and  social 
position.  I  was  on  one  occasion  invited  to  become 
the  pastor  of  a  large  church  that  was  thinly  at- 


A  ROMAN  CENTURION 


171 


tended  because  the  wealthier  people  who  had  built 
the  church  and  formerly  attended  it  were  now 
moving  away  and  an  industrial  population  was 
crowding  in.  When  I  had  the  official  board  to- 
gether  I  said  to  them:  “  Why  did  you  ask  me  to 
consider  becoming  the  pastor  of  your  church  ?  ” 
One  of  the  men  present  spoke  up  frankly  and  said, 
“  We  thought  you  would  draw  a  large  crowd  of 
people  and  fill  the  church.” 

I  replied:  “  I  can  fill  your  church;  but  from  what 
I  can  see,  I  am  sure  you  would  be  very  much  dis¬ 
satisfied  with  me  after  it  was  full.” 

“  Why  do  you  think  so  ?  ”  he  asked. 

My  reply  was,  “  Because  the  class  of  people  you 
desire  to  have  it  filled  with  are  moving  away.  The 
class  who  are  taking  their  places  are  wage  earn¬ 
ers,  who  could  never  pay  the  price  you  have  set 
on  your  pews.  If  I  were  to  become  your  pastor, 
I  should  insist  on  making  your  pews  free,  and 
should  seek  to  fill  them  with  the  new  crowd  of 
working  people  who  are  coming  into  this  section 
of  the  city.  I  can  fill  the  church  with  those,  but 
when  it  is  full,  unless  you  have  changed  your 
spirit,  you  would  not  be  happy.” 

I  did  not  accept  the  invitation,  and  it  took  years 
of  unhappy  experience  before  that  church  was  wise 
enough  to  learn  Peter’s  lesson  that  God  is  no  re¬ 
specter  of  persons  and  that  the  soul  of  a  chauffeur 


172  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


or  a  grocer  is  as  valuable  in  His  sight  as  the  soul 
of  a  banker  or  a  millionaire. 

Revivals  of  religion  have  often  failed  and  the 
Spirit  of  God  has  been  kept  away  from  evangelis¬ 
tic  effort  by  attempting  to  select  appropriate  can¬ 
didates  for  God’s  grace.  It  is  only  when  we  fully 
realize  that  every  soul  is  as  dear  to  the  heart  of 
God  as  a  son  or  daughter  is  to  the  heart  of  a  fa¬ 
ther  or  mother;  is  dear  to  Christ  as  one  for  whom 
He  shed  His  blood  in  atonement  on  the  cross,  that 
we  have  really  learned  the  great  lesson  of  the 
glorious  spiritual  victory  in  the  house  of  Corne¬ 
lius. 

In  my  early  ministry  I  had  a  friend,  an  earnest 
young  minister,  who  was  deeply  desirous  of  be¬ 
ing  a  soul  winner.  He  began  a  series  of  evangelis¬ 
tic  meetings,  and  the  first  night  he  asked  sinners 
to  come  forward  in  the  meeting  to  be  prayed  for, 
an  old  woman  by  the  name  of  Jones  and  her  rather 
feeble-minded  son  were  the  only  ones  at  the  altar. 
The  spirit  of  the  meeting  seemed  to  congeal  about 
my  ardent  friend,  and  when  the  meeting  closed,  he 
asked  one  of  his  leading  men  why  the  people  did 
not  gather  more  earnestly  to  pray  for  seekers. 

“  Oh,”  said  the  layman,  “  it  was  only  the 
Joneses  again.  Every  time  we  undertake  to  have 
a  revival  here,  some  of  that  Jones  tribe  lead  off 
and  the  respectable  people  keep  away.  There’s  a 


A  ROMAN  CENTURION 


173 


whole  raft  of  the  Jones  kindred  down  in  the  south 
part  of  town,  and  if  they  cannot  be  kept  away, 
the  meeting  will  be  spoiled.” 

My  friend  went  home,  broken-hearted.  He  did 
not  sleep  that  night.  It  was  Saturday.  He  prayed 
a  great  deal.  At  last  on  Sunday  morning  he  went 
into  the  pulpit  and  preached  the  best  he  could  on 
this  story  of  Cornelius;  he  urged  the  people  to 
learn  Peter’s  lesson,  that  all  souls  were  alike  dear 
to  the  heart  of  God  and  Christ,  and  at  the  close 
called  a  meeting  of  his  official  board.  He  told 
them  of  his  sleepless  night,  of  the  agony  he  had 
endured,  that  he  felt  that  he  would  rather  die  than 
not  have  a  great  revival  of  religion  that  would 
shake  the  wicked  town  about  them  and  save  a 
multitude  of  souls.  Pie  related  the  conversation 
he  had  had,  and  finished  by  saying,  “  Brethren,  I 
am  convinced  that  our  only  chance  for  a  great  re¬ 
vival  of  religion  in  this  church  and  in  this  town 
is  for  us  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf  and  give  God  a 
fair  chance  to  save  the  Joneses.”  And  he  begged 
them  to  join  with  him  in  an  honest  effort  to  reach 
every  member  of  the  off-colour  Jones  tribe  in  the 
whole  town,  and  not  to  stop  until  every  one  of 
them  was  converted.  He  was  so  desperately  in 
earnest  that  his  burning  zeal  and  his  tearful  pas¬ 
sion  for  souls  carried  that  whole  group  off  their 
feet,  and  on  their  knees  with  tears  and  prayers  they 


174  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


pledged  themselves  to  their  pastor  and  each  other 
and  God  to  save  the  Joneses. 

That  Sunday  afternoon  every  member  of  that 
whole  Jones  kindred,  no  matter  how  disreputable, 
was  visited  and  tenderly,  earnestly,  invited  to  the 
evening  service,  and  that  night  the  young  pastor 
preached  as  never  before,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  fell 
on  the  people  as  on  that  day  when  Peter  preached 
in  the  house  of  Cornelius,  and  not  only  a  multi¬ 
tude  of  the  Joneses,  but  many  others,  including 
some  of  the  most  respectable  and  influential  citi¬ 
zens  of  that  town,  found  Christ  and  the  forgive¬ 
ness  of  their  sins.  That  meeting  ran  on  for  many 
weeks,  and  hundreds  of  souls  were  saved.  Oh, 
my  friends,  we  must  not  seek  to  limit  the  grace  of 
God,  or  seek  to  grade  souls.  Man  is  God’s  child. 
“  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children  ”  He  looks 
on  the  sorriest  one  of  His  family  flock.  We  must 
not  count  one  of  them  common  or  unclean. 

And  is  there  not  another  lesson  here  that  some 
need  to  heed  ?  You  are  not  a  Christian.  All  your 
life  you  have  lived  in  a  Christian  land.  Your 
mother  taught  you  to  pray  before  you  could  talk 
plainly.  Your  life  has  been  hedged  about  and 
held  back  from  open  wickedness  by  Christian  in¬ 
fluence  and  public  sentiment.  Like  Cornelius,  you 
have  supported  good  causes  and  kindly  charities 
with  your  money.  If  people  were  asked  about 


A  ROMAN  CENTURION 


175 


you  in  the  community  they  would  say,  “  He  is  a 
good  man,”  “  She  is  a  good  woman,”  but  “  they 
do  not  belong  to  the  church.” 

You  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  died  on  the  cross 
to  atone  for  your  sins,  and  yet  you  have  never  said, 
“  O  Lord  Jesus,  I  thank  You!  ”  You  have  never 
stood  up  among  your  friends  and  neighbours  and 
confessed  that  all  the  goodness  you  have,  which 
they  have  admired  in  you,  you  owe  to  Jesus. 
When  Christ’s  friends  have  met  to  do  Him  honour, 
you  have  never  stood  up  in  their  midst  and  said: 
“  I,  too,  honour  Christ !  I,  too,  confess  Him  as 
my  Saviour !  ” 

My  friends,  follow  the  example  of  Cornelius 
and  give  Jesus  at  once  your  open  love  and  con¬ 
fession,  and  like  him  you  will  enter  upon  a  joyous 
experience  unknown  to  you  before. 


XIV 


THE  STORY  OF  A  MIDNIGHT 
CONVERSION 


“Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to  he  saved ?  And  they 
said,  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus ,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved ,  thou  and  thy  house.” — Acts  16:  30-31. 


HENEVER  a  preacher  hits  the  sin 
which  is  an  important  source  of  revenue 
to  some  one  in  town,  he  is  sure  to  hear 


from  the  man  or  men  whose  bank  account  is  being 
filled  from  that  sin.  In  the  days  when  the  liquor 
saloons  were  still  open,  and  were  the  greatest  graft 
in  our  cities,  it  was  amazing  what  a  furore  could 
be  stirred  up  by  an  attack  on  the  saloons,  if  it 
went  so  far  as  to  threaten  to  shut  their  doors  or 
cut  off  sales.  The  man  who  was  renting  his  prop¬ 
erty  for  the  saloon;  the  gambler  who  had  a  con¬ 
cession  to  fleece  the  unwary  in  the  back  room ;  the 
white  slaver,  and  the  bawdy-house  keeper,  who 
kept  the  open  door  to  hell  up-stairs  or  in  the  rear 
---all  these,  and  others  who  had  a  rake-off  from 
the  ill-gotten  gains  of  the  saloon,  were  up  in  arms 
when  that  evil  spider-den  was  threatened.  And 
they  were  all  ready  to  join  in  browbeating  or  ston- 


176 


A  MIDNIGHT  CONVERSION 


177 


ing  the  preacher  who  dared  to  expose  the  villainy 
of  that  particular  sin. 

The  same  thing  has  to  be  met  with  to-day  when 
the  war  is  waged  on  that  Judas  of  modern  civiliza¬ 
tion,  the  bootlegger  and  the  rum-runner.  The 
banker  who  lends  him  money  and  shares  his  profits 
in  blood;  the  newspaper  which  is  bribed  to  be 
blind;  the  politician  who  is  promised  dirty  votes, 
are  all  ready  to  cry  out  against  the  honest  preacher 
who  fights  for  a  sober,  clean  town. 

It  was  like  that  when  Paul  and  Silas  came  to 
the  old  Roman  town  of  Philippi  to  preach  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus.  Spiritualism  seems  to  have  been 
the  peculiar  sin  of  Philippi.  And  a  young  woman 
who  was  at  the  moment  the  popular  medium  of 
the  town  followed  after  Paul  and  Silas  as  they 
were  going  to  and  from  their  meetings,  and  called 
after  them  so  much  as  to  greatly  annoy  them; 
until  Paul  turned  and  said  to  the  evil  spirit  which 
possessed  the  medium,  “  Come  out  of  her.”  And 
when  this  poor  girl  was  made  free  from  the  evil 
spirit,  and  was  no  longer  devil-driven,  she  ceased 
to  tell  fortunes,  and  to  be  a  good  money-getter 
for  the  vicious  men  who  had  been  exploiting  her. 
And  when  the  money  stopped  coming  in,  they  ifn- 
mediately  aroused  themselves  to  get  rid  of  the 
preachers  who  had  interfered  with  their  profits. 
They  had  Paul  and  Silas  arrested  and  brought  be- 


i 


178  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


fore  the  police  court,  and  then  they  organized  a 
mob  to  go  to  the  trial  and  make  a  show  of  riot,  to 
scare  the  judges  and  insure  the  punishment  of 
Paul  and  Silas.  After  they  had  had  them  beaten 
until  they  were  nearly  dead,  they  turned  them 
over  to  the  jailer  of  the  town  and  ordered  him 
to  keep  them  safely.  He,  too,  seems  to  have  been 
a  hard-hearted  politician,  who,  without  sympathy 
for  their  miserable  condition,  thrust  them  into  the 
inner  prison,  which  was  reserved  for  the  most 
desperate  of  prisoners,  without  food,  or  any  at¬ 
tempt  to  ameliorate  their  condition.  And,  indeed, 
to  emphasize  his  indifference  to  their  sufferings, 
he  thrust  their  feet  into  the  stocks. 

I  have  often  mused  on  the  probable  conversation 
between  Paul  and  Silas  in  that  inner  prison,  a 
conversation  which  led  up  to  the  happenings  where 
Luke  takes  up  the  story  of  the  remarkable  experi¬ 
ences  of  the  midnight. 

I  have  imagined  that  Silas  was  inclined  to  be 
depressed  and  very  blue  in  his  feelings  as  he  lay 
there  on  his  poor  bruised  and  bloody  back,  with 
his  feet  so  fast  in  the  stocks  that  he  could  not 
change  his  position  for  relief.  I  hear  him  say: 
“  Paul,  how  long  do  you  think  we  are  going  to 
be  able  to  stand  this?  I  feel  that  this  is  about  the 
limit  of  my  endurance.,, 

Then  I  hear  the  voice  of  Paul,  resonant  with 


A  MIDNIGHT  CONVERSION 


179 


courage  and  good  cheer,  as  he  exclaims,  “  Cheer 
up,  Silas,  these  light  afflictions,  which  are  but  for 
a  moment,  shall  work  out  for  us  a  far  more  ex¬ 
ceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory !  ” 

Then  I  hear  poor  Silas  answer,  “  But,  Paul,  this 
pain  is  very  real,  and  I  have  not  eaten  since  break¬ 
fast,  and  the  hunger  is  gnawing  at  my  empty 
stomach,  and  the  pain  in  my  bruised  back  where 
the  rods  cut  the  flesh  and  the  hunger  in  my  stomach 
seem  very  close  together  to-night/’ 

But  Paul  comes  back  with  cheerful  voice,  say¬ 
ing,  “  Don’t  be  downhearted,  Silas.  We  have  not 
yet  begun  to  suffer  as  Christ  did.  Do  you  remem¬ 
ber  how  He  was  beaten  until  He  fainted  under 
the  cross  on  the  way  to  Calvary  ?  Do  you  remem¬ 
ber  how  they  nailed  Him  to  the  cross,  driving  the 
spikes  through  His  hands  and  feet,  and  yet  Pie 
kept  His  courage  and  kindness  and  prayed  for  the 
men  that  crucified  Him,  and  how  by  refusing  to 
revile  His  enemies  when  they  reviled  Him  He 
won  that  dying  thief  to  be  one  of  His  disciples? 
Oh,  Silas,  what  a  glorious  thing  it  will  be  if  we 
may  so  bear  our  cross  here  to-night  with  courage, 
and  hope,  and  faith,  that  God  may  give  us  some 
souls  out  of  this  prison  to  rejoice  over  in  that 
great  day !  For,  Silas,  if  we  suffer  with  Him  we 
shall  also  be  glorified  with  Him.” 

And  then  I  imagine  Paul  says:  “  Silas,  why  not 


180  WONDERFUIT  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 

have  a  season  of  prayer?  That  is  what  Jesus  al¬ 
ways  did  after  a  hard  day;  He  sometimes  prayed 
all  night.” 

And  then  Paul  leads  in  prayer.  Paul  was  a 
mighty  man  in  prayer.  The  little  brief  paragraphs 
of  prayer  found  in  Paul’s  letters  show  great 
versatility  and  power  in  his  prayers.  How  he 
must  have  prayed  that  night!  I  can  hear  him  as 
in  the  midst  of  hunger  and  pain  he  sincerely  pours 
out  the  thanksgiving  of  his  great  soul  for  the 
blessed  privilege  of  sharing  in  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,  and  asks  for  God’s  blessing  on  their 
enemies.  He  pours  forth  his  intercession  for  the 
cruel  jailer,  prays  that  his  hard  heart  may  be 
made  tender,  and  that  he  and  his  family  and  their 
fellow  prisoners  may  be  brought  to  repent  of  their 
sins  and  be  saved.  And  he  pleads  with  God  in 
the  name  of  Jesus  that  Silas  and  himself  may 
conduct  themselves  so  cheerfully,  and  with  such 
gentleness  and  patience,  that  they  may  be  made  a 
great  blessing  to  the  jailer  and  all  others  in  the 
prison,  that  he  may  not  harm  any  one  there,  but 
be  a  help  and  blessing  to  all. 

Now,  the  jailer  was  on  his  way  to  bed  after  a 
hard  day  when  he  was  attracted  by  the  sound  of 
Paul’s  prayer,  and  he  slipped  back  down  the  cor¬ 
ridor  to  listen,  and  as  he  listened,  his  conscience 
troubled  him,  and  a  strange  wonder  and  fear  took 


A  MIDNIGHT  CONVERSION  1SI 

hold  on  him.  “  Just  listen  to  that !  ”  he  says  to 
himself.  “  I  have  had  a  good  many  prisoners 
curse  me  for  putting  them  in  that  dungeon,  but 
that  is  the  first  man  that  ever  prayed  for  me  for 
doing  it.  He  is  certainly  a  new  kind  of  man  to 
me.  It  must  be  a  wonderful  thing  to  believe  in  a 
God  like  that,  one  who  loves  you,  and  hears  you, 
and  answers  you.  He  prays  for  me  as  though  he 
loved  me  and  wanted  to  do  me  good,  instead  of 
getting  even  with  me.  It  makes  me  feel  awful 
mean.  It  was  hard  to  put  their  feet  in  those  stocks 
with  their  backs  in  a  fix  like  that.  I  am  getting 
to  be  a  pretty  hard  man.  What  if  their  religion 
is  true?  What  if  Jesus  Christ,  whom  they  are 
preaching,  did  really  rise  from  the  dead,  as  they 
claim?  Justin,  the  centurion,  who  recently  came 
to  Philippi,  says  he  was  in  charge  of  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus,  and  he  believes  Christ  was  more  than 
man,  that  He  was  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  He 
did  really  rise  from  the  dead.  What  if  he  is  right  ? 
What  if  these  preachers  are  right?  I  have  sinned 
deeply  to-night  against  this  God  Paul  is  praying 
to,  if  they  are  right.  But  if  they  should  get  away 
I  would  lose  my  head.  A  poor  jailer  is  in  a  hard 
place  these  days.”  And  so,  worried  in  his  con¬ 
science  and  confused  in  his  mind,  and  dead  tired 
with  the  work  and  worries  of  a  long,  hard  day, 
the  jailer  goes  on  to  bed,  and  is  soon  sleeping 


182  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 

the  heavy  sleep  of  a  worn-out  and  exhausted 
man. 

When  it  comes  Silas’s  turn  to  lead  in  prayer, 
he  is  ready  with  his  appeal  to  God.  He  has  for¬ 
gotten  the  gloom  that  had  depressed  him.  Paul’s 
enthusiastic  faith  has  been  contagious,  and  his 
heart  has  caught  the  fire  from  heaven,  and  when 
Paul  ceases  he  takes  up  the  prayer,  and  they  are 
both  so  comforted  by  this  communion  with  God 
and  Christ  that  their  hunger  and  pain  are  over¬ 
come,  and  when  Silas  has  finished  his  prayer, 
Paul  says,  “  Silas,  cannot  we  sing  something?  ” 

If  they  had  had  Rodeheaver’s  favourite,  I  am 
sure  that  right  there  in  that  inner  cell  of  that 
Philippi  jail,  with  their  feet  in  the  stocks,  they 
would  have  sung,  “  Brighten  the  corner  where  you 
are!  ”  For  that  was  just  what  they  were  doing. 
For,  as  they  had  been  praying,  the  other  prisoners 
in  cells  about  them  had  been  listening,  at  first  no 
doubt  with  sneers  and  insults,  but  as  the  pleading 
with  God  for  help  changed  to  thanksgiving,  and 
they  heard  sincere  pleading  with  God  for  them¬ 
selves,  and  noted  how,  as  the  prayers  proceeded, 
the  tone  changed  to  joy  and  triumph,  they  were 
deeply  impressed,  and  down  in  most  of  their 
wicked  hearts  there  had  been  a  feeling  of  the  lone¬ 
liness  and  barrenness  of  sin,  and  a  rising  desire 
to  have  some  relation  to  a  God  that  would  make 


A  MIDNIGHT  CONVERSION 


183 


such  courage  and  joy  as  was  shown  by  Paul  and 
Silas  under  such  fearful  conditions  possible  to 
their  own  hearts. 

But  what  will  Paul  and  Silas  sing?  Hymn 
books  were  scarce  in  Paul’s  day  in  Philippi.  There 
are  plenty  of  hymns  now  that  would  have  been 
appropriate.  How  Charles  Wesley’s  “  Jesus, 
Lover  of  my  Soul,  let  me  to  Thy  bosom  fly  ”  would 
have  fitted  the  situation  that  dark  night ! 

Toplady’s 

“  Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me, 

Let  me  hide  myself  in  Thee,” 

would  have  answered  all  right.  Or  Theodore 
Roosevelt’s  favourite — 

“  How  firm  a  foundation,  ye  saints  of  the  Lord,” 
would  have  done,  or 

“  Onward,  Christian  soldiers, 

Marching  as  to  war  ” 

would  have  been  fine — though  they  were  in  no 
shape  for  marching  just  then. 

There  are  plenty  of  songs  now;  but  none  of 
these  hymns  of  comfort  and  faith  had  been  writ¬ 
ten  by  a  thousand  years  or  more.  Oh,  I  know 
what  it  was  Paul  and  Silas  sang  that  night!  I 
have  not  a  doubt  of  it.  It  was  David’s  precious 
Shepherd  Psalm,  and  it  could  not  have  been  much 


184  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


different  from  James  Montgomery’s  sweet  render¬ 
ing  of  it.  Just  imagine  how  it  must  have  sounded 
to  those  listening  prisoners  as  it  rang  down  the 
corridors  of  the  jail  at  Philippi  at  midnight,  rang 
out  in  tones  of  gladness: 

“  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,  no  want  shall  I  know ; 
I  feed  in  green  pastures,  safe-folded  I  rest; 

He  leadeth  my  soul  where  the  still  waters  flow, 
Restores  me  when  wandering,  redeems  when  op¬ 
pressed.” 

I  can  imagine  how  astonished  the  other  prisoners 
were  as  they  listened. 

One  listening  prisoner  says  to  his  cell-mate: 
“  What  do  you  think  of  that?  Those  fellows  are 
in  an  awful  condition.  They  are  raw  and  bleed¬ 
ing,  they  are  held  stiff  in  the  stocks,  so  their  backs 
are  kept  to  the  cell  floor;  they  are  hungry  and 
half-starved,  and  still  they  sing!  ” 

“  Listen  to  what  they  say,”  says  the  other, 
“  ‘  green  pastures.’  If  they  are  in  green  pastures 
to-night  in  that  inner  cell,  chained  to  the  floor,  with 
their  bloody  backs,  what  do  you  suppose  it  would 
take  to  make  a  desert  for  them?  ” 

And  just  then  came  the  earthquake.  Were  you 
ever  in  an  earthquake?  If  so,  you  had  an  inter¬ 
esting  experience,  one  you  have  never  forgotten. 
I  was  in  a  little  one  once.  I  was  dressing  in  the 
morning,  facing  the  front  window,  with  a  row  of 


A  MIDNIGHT  CONVERSION 


185 


shade  trees  in  view,  when  suddenly  that  row  of 
trees  grew  wonderfully  polite  and  bowed  down  to 
me,  and  not  to  be  outdone,  I  bowed  down  in  return, 
and  the  vase  fell  off  the  mantel,  and  all  the  world 
seemed  to  be  confused;  but  that  was  only  a  little 
earthquake.  This  earthquake  at  midnight  that  in¬ 
terrupted  the  song  of  Paul  and  Silas  is  described 
as  a  mighty  earthquake  in  a  country  where  earth¬ 
quakes  were  not  uncommon.  The  walls  of  the 
prison  of  Philippi  reeled  to  and  fro,  and  every 
door  flew  open.  Not  only  the  doors,  but  the  stocks 
in  the  inner  cell  were  shaken  to  pieces.  The  pris¬ 
oners,  confused  and  not  knowing  what  had  hap¬ 
pened,  came  running  together  into  the  lobby  or 
common  hall  of  the  jail.  The  jailer  had  been 
sound  asleep,  but  the  earthquake  flung  him  from 
his  bed,  and  as  consciousness  came  to  him  he  was 
in  terror  and  despair.  When  he  saw  the  jail  doors 
were  opening,  and  heard  the  prisoners  in  their 
excited  exclamations  in  the  lobby,  he  felt  sure  they 
would  all  escape  and  he  would  lose  his  life.  Those 
were  grim  old  days,  and  the  jailer  answered  for 
the  safe-keeping  of  his  prisoners  with  his  life.  So 
the  despairing  jailer,  fearing  that  he  was  ruined 
and  that  only  disgrace  and  death  awaited  him, 
drew  his  sword,  intending  to  commit  suicide. 
Then  Paul  came  to  the  front.  Paul  was  always 
the  leader  wherever  he  went.  When  a  prisoner 


186  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


on  an  Alexandrian  com  ship,  when  the  storm  came* 
it  was  Paul  who  saved  captain  and  crew.  It  was 
now  Paul  who  takes  the  lead  and  cries  out  to  the 
despairing  jailer,  “Do  thyself  no  harm:  for  we 
are  all  here.” 

At  that  commanding  voice  the  jailer  gathers 
his  scattered  guards,  and  when  he  has  secured 
lights,  he  comes  to  Paul  and  Silas,  the  men  he  has 
so  cruelly  fastened  in  the  stocks  in  the  inner  dun¬ 
geon,  in  fear  and  trembling.  Paul's  conduct  has 
convinced  him  that  the  Gospel  they  have  been 
preaching  in  Philippi  is  true.  No  doubt  his  the¬ 
ology  is  very  vague  and  confused  as  yet,  but  he 
feels  that  the  way  to  salvation  is  known  to  Paul 
and  Silas,  so  he  falls  on  his  knees  before  them 
and  cries,  “  Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  ” 
How  the  hearts  of  Paul  and  Silas  must  have 
leaped  with  joy  and  gladness  then!  God  had 
given  them  the  victory.  He  had  answered  their 
prayers.  As  Jesus  won  a  soul  on  the  cross,  so  they 
were  to  win  souls  in  their  dungeon.  Thank  God ! 
Paul  and  Silas  knew  what  to  say  to  the  jailer. 
With  one  voice  they  shout:  “  Believe  on  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved,  thou  and  thy 
house.”  And  they  went  right  on  and  preached 
Jesus  to  the  jailer  and  the  whole  company  of 
officers  and  prisoners,  and  many  gave  their  hearts 
to  God  and  were  happily  converted,  and  were  bap- 


A  MIDNIGHT  CONVERSION 


187 


tized  in  the  jail  that  night  as  followers  of  Christ 
Jesus. 

But  I  want  you  to  notice  the  wonderful  effect 
of  the  conversion  of  the  jailer  on  his  character 
and  conduct.  When  Paul  and  Silas  were  brought 
to  the  jail,  bleeding  and  bruised  and  hungry,  he 
offered  them  neither  sympathy  nor  food  nor  min¬ 
istry  of  any  kind.  He  put  them  in  the  worst  cell 
in  the  prison,  and  put  their  feet  in  the  stocks,  and 
went  off  to  bed.  But  now  that  he  has  repented  of 
his  sins  and  God  has  forgiven  him  through  Jesus 
Christ,  see  how  differently  he  feels  and  acts. 

He  delays  the  baptism  to  minister  to  them. 
He  asks  them  to  wait  until  he  goes  and  gets  a  pan 
of  water  and  a  towel  and  a  bottle  of  oil.  And  I 
see  him  as,  with  tears  running  down  his  cheeks 
like  rain,  he  washes  the  dirt  of  that  dungeon  cell 
from  their  poor  bruised  backs  and  pours  on  the 
healing  oil  and  binds  up  their  wounds  and  makes 
them  as  comfortable  as  he  can,  and  then,  after  he 
has  been  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and 
of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  he  takes  Paul 
and  Silas,  not  to  the  inner  dungeon, — no,  indeed, 
— he  takes  them  up-stairs  into  the  family  rooms 
over  the  jail,  and  he  hunts  up  the  best  food  there 
is  in  the  house,  and  gets  up  the  best  breakfast  that 
jail  has  ever  seen,  and  sets  it  before  Paul  and 
Silas.  He  will  not  let  the  servants  serve  them; 


188  WONDERFUL  BIBLE  CONVERSIONS 


he  serves  them  himself  in  humility  and  love,  and 
urges  them,  with  loving  persistence,  to  partake  of 
food. 

There  is  nothing  in  this  world  that  will  so  melt 
a  hard  heart  and  make  it  tender  and  loving  as  the 
forgiving  mercy  of  Jesus.  No  wonder  Luke  tells 
us  when  writing  the  story  that  the  jailer  “  re¬ 
joiced  greatly,  with  all  his  house,  having  believed 
in  God.” 

Thank  God,  the  Christian  religion  is  the  religion 
of  joy.  If  you  will  forsake  your  sins  here  and 
now  you,  too,  shall  lose  your  hardness  of  heart, 
your  sorrow  and  your  fear,  and  you  will  find  a  joy 
more  wonderfully  satisfying  than  you  have  ever 
known. 

Come  to  Christ!  Leave  all  your  gloom  and 
your  fears  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  in  His  for¬ 
giving  love  find  the  fountain  of  joy  that  shall  never 
cease  to  send  forth  streams  of  gladness  and  re¬ 
joicing. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


HELPFUL  SERMONS 


JAMES  I.  VANCE ,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Pastor  First  Presbyterian  Church-,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

In  the  Breaking  of  the  Bread 

Communion  Addresses.  $1.25. 

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should  accompany  the  observance  of  the  Lord’s  Supper — 
suggestions  fitted  for  a  communion  occasion.  The  ad¬ 
dresses  all  bear  upon  the  general  theme  of  the  Lord’s  Sup¬ 
per  and  showed  marked  spirituality  of  thought  and  fervency 
of  expression.” — United  Presbyterian . 

TEUNIS  E,  GOUWENS  Pastor  Second  Presbyterian 

v"  —  . ■*  Church,  Louisville,  Ky, 

The  Rock  That  Is  Higher 

And  Other  Addresses.  $1.25. 

An  unusually  successful  volume  of  discourses  of  which 
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experience .  As  I  have  read  it  I  have  found  my 

conscience  penetrated,  my  faith  deepened  and  my  hope 
quickened.” 


W.  RUSSELL  BOWIE ,  D.D. 

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The  Road  of  the  Star 

and  Other  Sermons.  $1.50. 

A  volume  of  addresses  which  bring  the  message  of 
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immediate  needs  of  men.  The  extraordinary  distinction 
of  Dr.  Bowie’s  preaching  rises  from  the  fact  that  to 
greet  vigor  of  thought  he  has  added  the  winged  power  of 
an  imagination  essentially  poetic. 


JOSEPH  JUDSON  TAYLOR ,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Author  of  "The  Sabbatic  Question,"  “ The  God  of  War,"  etc . 

Radiant  Hopefulness 

$1.00. 

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have  been  shaken  in  the  turbulent  times  through  which 
the  world  has  passed  in  recent  years,  with  which  man¬ 
kind  still  finds  itself  faced.  In  this  volume  of  addressee. 
Dr.  Taylor  points  the  way  to  comfort  amid  confusion,  to 
peaceful  harborage  amid  the  prevailing  storm. 


EVANGELISTIC  WORK 


OZORA  H.  DAVIS ,  D.D. 

President  Chicago  Theological  Seminary, » 

Preaching  the  Social  Gospel 

$1.50. 

The  new  book  by  the  author  of  “Evangelistic  Preach 
ing”  is  the  next  book  every  preacher  should  read.  As  a 
high  authority  recently  said  “Every  preacher  needs  to 
read  books  on  preaching  and  the  problems  of  preaching 
and  should  read  one  such  book  every  year.”  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  book  that  fits  this  need  better  than  this 
latest  work  of  President  Davis’. 

J.  WILBUR  CHAPMAN ,  D.D. 

Evangelistic  Sermons 

Edited  and  Compiled  by  Edgar  Whitaker 
Work,  D.D.,  with  Frontispiece.  $1.50. 

Strong,  fervid  gospel  addresses,  eminently  character¬ 
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Work  has  used  his  editorial  prerogatives  with  pronounced 
skill.  As  a  result  every  paragraph  is  reminiscent  of 
Dr.  Chapman,  and  from  every  page  of  the  book  one 
seems  to  hear  again  the  voice  and  compelling  message 
of  one  who  while  living  preached  to  possibly  as  manf 
people  as  any  man  of  his  generation,  who  “being  dead 
yet  speaketh.” 

LOUIS  ALBERT  BANKS ,  D.  D. 

Author  of"  Thirty-one  Revival  Sermons* 

The  New  Ten  Commandments 

and  Other  Sermons.  $1.50. 

Strong,  stirring  Gospel  addresses  reflecting  the  true 
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tains  his  impressive,  picturesque  style  of  presentation. 
Apt  quotation,  fitting  illustration,  drawn  from  literature 
and  human  life  give  point  and  color  to  his  work,  which 
is  without  a  dull  or  meaningless  page. 

FRANK  CHALMERS  McKEAN,  A.M.,  D.D . 

The  Magnetism  of  Mystery 

and  Other  Sermons 

Introduction  by  J.  A.  Marquis,  D.D.  $1.25 

Dr.  John  A.  Marquis  says:  “Dr.  McKean’s  sermons  are 
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ness.  They  will  be  read  with  interest,  not  only  for  what 
they  are  in  themselves,  but  as  types  of  the  pulpit  ministry 
that  is  making  the  Church  of  the  Middle  West.’’ 


STANDARD  REFERENCE  WORKS 


G.  B.  F.  HALLOCK  Editor  of  " The  Expositor ? 

A  Modern  Cyclopedia  of  Illus¬ 
trations  for  All  Occasions 

Nineteen  Hundred  and  Thirty-eight  Illustrations. 

$300. 

A  comprehensive  collection  of  illustrative  incidents, 
anecdotes  and  other  suggestive  material  for  the  outstanding 
days  and  seasons  of  the  church  year.  The  author,  well- 
known  to  the  readers  of  “ The  Expositor has  presented 
a  really  valuable  handbook  for  Preachers,  Sunday  School 
Superintendents  and  all  Christian  workers. 

JAMES  INGLIS 

The  Bible  Text  Cyclopedia 

A  Complete  Classification  of  Scripture  Texts. 
New  Edition.  Targe  8vo,  $2.00 

“More  sensible  and  convenient,  and  every  way  more 
satisfactory  than  any  book  of  the  kind  we  have  ever 
known.  We  know  of  no  other  work  comparable  with 
it  in  this  department  of  study.” — Sunday  School  Times1 

ANGUS-GREEN 

Cyclopedic  Handbook  to  the  Bible 

By  Joseph  Angus.  Revised  by  Samuel  G.  Green, 

New  Edition.  832  pages,  with  Index,  $3.00. 

T^he  Best  thing  in  its  line.” — Ira  M.  Price,  Univ.  of 
Chicago. 

“Holds  an  unchallenged  place  among  aids  to  the  inter* 
pretation  of  the  Scriptures.” — Baptist  Review  and  Ex* 
positor. 

“Of  immense  service  to  Biblical  students.” — Methodist 
Times. 

The  Treasury  of  Scripture  Knowledge 

Introduction  by  R.  A.  Torrey 
Consisting  of  500,000  Scripture  References  and 
Parallel  Passages.  788  pages.  8vo.  Cloth.  $3.00. 

“Bible  students  who  desire  to  compare  Scripture  with 
Scripture  will  find  the  ‘Treasury’  to  be  a  better  help  than 
any  other  book  of  which  I  have  any  knowledge.” — R.  R. 
McBurney,  Former  Gen.  Sec ^  Y.  M.  C,  A.,  New  York, 

4.  R.  BUCKLAND ,  Editor 

Universal  Bible  Dictionary 

51 1  pages.  8vo.  Cloth.  $3.00. 

J)r.  GcmPbell  Morgan  says:  “Clear,  concise,  compre¬ 
hensive.  1  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  if  any  student 
would  take  the  Bible,  and  go  through  it  book  by  book  with 
us  aid,  the  gain  would  be  enormous.” 


PRAYER,  DEVOTIONAL,  ETC 


J-  D*  JONES,  D.D.  Author  of  ,rSt.  Paul’s  Certainties .** 

The  King  of  Love 

Meditations  on  The  Twenty-third  Psalm.  $1.25. 

Dr.  Jones  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  living  preachers,  and 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  his  splendid  gifts  are  fully 
recognized.  The  clear,  eloquent,  and  deeply  devotional 
character  of  his  work  makes  it  specially  interesting.  The 
meditations  literally  breathe  counsel  and  enheartenment. 

LYNN  HAROLD  HOUGH ,  D.D . 

The  Strategy  of  the  Devotional  Life 

75c. 

Amid  the  vast  life  of  a  great  city,  the  problem  of  sus¬ 
taining  true  spiritual  life  is  a  problem  of  increasing  grav¬ 
ity  and  difficulty.  The  “strategy”  of  the  process  as  Dr. 
Hough  so  ably  calls  it, .  is  discussed  in  the  pages  of  his 
new  book,  with  convincing  clarity. 

HENRY  FAN  DYKE ,  D.D. 

Thy  Sea  is  Great— Our  Boats  Are  Small 

and  Other  Hymns  of  To-day.  50c. 

A  number  of  new  hymns  written  by  a  recognized  master 
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day  aspirations  not  possibly  finding  utterance  before. 

FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS ,  D.D. 

Prayers  of  Frank  W.  Gunsaulus 

$1.25. 

**Dr.  Gunsaulus  was  one  of  the  most  richly-endowed 
preachers  of  his  generation,  and  his  prayers  reflect  a  mind 
and  heart  wondrously  attuned  to  the  harmonies  of  the 
Highest.” — Christian  Work . 

/.  PATERSON-SMYTH ,  LLP.,  D.C.L. 

Author  of  " The  Gospel  of  the  Hereafter* 

On  the  Rim  of  the  World 

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written  to  convince  unbelievers,  but  to  console  and  coxn« 
fort  Christians  whose  knowledge  is  altogether  too  small  on 
this  most  vital  matter.  And  this  task  the  author  has  vreD 
performed.” — C.  B.  World . 


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